David Bentley had the world of football at his feet when he transferred to Spurs for £15m. The England International could have made his place permanent at both club and international level. Instead he has been a waste of space, too interested in getting his hair messed up, and soppy ball tricks that don’t work, instead of creating and scoring.
Harry Redknapp, as good a manager as he is, the true test of his Spurs side and his management is when Spurs beat Manchester United instead of getting kicked out of cup competitions by them and selecting the woeful Bentley. Football is a team game, teams cannot carry passengers.
Sepp Blatter and FIFA. 23 years ago Maradonna cheated England out of the world cup with his so called “hand of god” goal. 23 years later we can still all see goals that should have been allowed or disallowed, all except the referee, linesman and Sepp Blatter, who should himself win a winners’ medal for having his head in the sand longer than any ostrich………………..mute applause for the above.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Monday, 30 November 2009
Come on you Spurs
Ask a Wigan Athletic fan whose team actually reimbursed his expenses when visiting White Heart Lane only to see his side hammered 9 -1 ....Come on You Spurs
Don't you want me Baby, don't you want me ahahaha
I started writing this blog as some kind of legacy to the next generations, about life as I know it, because I never had anyone to give me pearls of wisdom really apart from a caring elder sister.
Now, driving for UPS I feel over qualified, under utilised…………..it is so degrading sometimes ferrying cardboard boxes, and so depressing. Infuriating when idiots are behind a steering wheel and are in front of me, but at least not for long !!! Also infuriating when stores don’t answer their delivery goods in back doors, those that have bells of course, Yes believe it or not some don’t have bells and I guess they believe in divine meditation to get supplies.
And another thing…. I used to earn more for 40 hours a week rather than less for 60 hours a week of tedium.
No one ever prepared me for this aspect of life as I know it. Hence the message according to Meldew and the story line now. It’s no good saying, I am doom and gloom, could be worse. I am older and wiser, too old for a worthwhile job, and the stark reality is no one wants a man like me aged 60. That is rather soul destroying, and sadly it is true. Yes I delivered a small box to a lovely lady who answered the door in a wheel chair. She was so happy, it made me smile. She had everything to be unhappy about but she was not………….mmmmm.
Whereas me, I get so fed up. Last Friday night, eating my dinner at the dinner table, I was still mentally in the fast lane trying to get home. Some female retailer had said a few hours earlier that I looked shattered, well a few hours later she was dead right.
It is awful, wasteful and indictment on our society, that someone like me, yes I am blowing my own trumpet, well someone has too………cannot use his experience and knowledge for gainful employment for the benefit of others as well as me.
I have a chat every now and again with a young lad who works in Waterstones, the book shop. He is told when to work, most of the 7 days the shop is open, for a basic salary. He has no say on his times of the shifts, inc Saturday and Sunday and late night Thursdays. He asks me about my job, most of the shops know I work 60 hours a week verbatim. Neither of us get overtime. Was Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch right to kill the successors of the Tolpuddle Martyrs ???? I think not.
In the 70’s as a thirty something, I thought things would get easier. There would be more leisure time, a better work life balance. Wow was I wrong wrong wrong with that logical forecast. Employment sucks, this recession is a depression, less jobs and more people on the dole going for the fewer opportunities as situations are not vacant at all and slavery has manifested once again. Still we have firms going bust, the latest Bottoms Up has gone bottom up. That means those jobs are not there anymore and the staff are all looking for work, it is a constant spiral or diminishing returns.
My job with UPS has more downs than Ups, but at least it’s a job and I have some money, but no time and not enough £££ to spend on riotous living.
One final thought. For more than 6 months Shirley and I did not speak, we led separate lives apart from the odd slagging match. The house was for sale. She wanted a new life with a Yorkshire terrier. It was a sad affair.
One day she said she didn’t want anyone else to be with me.
That was rather poignant.
No one had ever said that to me before.
It is easy to demolish, takes so much longer to construct. Plants take time to flourish, buildings too to rise into the sky.
I said no one wants me. Well Shirley did, and it was not a case of surely not.
I thank her for that.
Now, driving for UPS I feel over qualified, under utilised…………..it is so degrading sometimes ferrying cardboard boxes, and so depressing. Infuriating when idiots are behind a steering wheel and are in front of me, but at least not for long !!! Also infuriating when stores don’t answer their delivery goods in back doors, those that have bells of course, Yes believe it or not some don’t have bells and I guess they believe in divine meditation to get supplies.
And another thing…. I used to earn more for 40 hours a week rather than less for 60 hours a week of tedium.
No one ever prepared me for this aspect of life as I know it. Hence the message according to Meldew and the story line now. It’s no good saying, I am doom and gloom, could be worse. I am older and wiser, too old for a worthwhile job, and the stark reality is no one wants a man like me aged 60. That is rather soul destroying, and sadly it is true. Yes I delivered a small box to a lovely lady who answered the door in a wheel chair. She was so happy, it made me smile. She had everything to be unhappy about but she was not………….mmmmm.
Whereas me, I get so fed up. Last Friday night, eating my dinner at the dinner table, I was still mentally in the fast lane trying to get home. Some female retailer had said a few hours earlier that I looked shattered, well a few hours later she was dead right.
It is awful, wasteful and indictment on our society, that someone like me, yes I am blowing my own trumpet, well someone has too………cannot use his experience and knowledge for gainful employment for the benefit of others as well as me.
I have a chat every now and again with a young lad who works in Waterstones, the book shop. He is told when to work, most of the 7 days the shop is open, for a basic salary. He has no say on his times of the shifts, inc Saturday and Sunday and late night Thursdays. He asks me about my job, most of the shops know I work 60 hours a week verbatim. Neither of us get overtime. Was Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch right to kill the successors of the Tolpuddle Martyrs ???? I think not.
In the 70’s as a thirty something, I thought things would get easier. There would be more leisure time, a better work life balance. Wow was I wrong wrong wrong with that logical forecast. Employment sucks, this recession is a depression, less jobs and more people on the dole going for the fewer opportunities as situations are not vacant at all and slavery has manifested once again. Still we have firms going bust, the latest Bottoms Up has gone bottom up. That means those jobs are not there anymore and the staff are all looking for work, it is a constant spiral or diminishing returns.
My job with UPS has more downs than Ups, but at least it’s a job and I have some money, but no time and not enough £££ to spend on riotous living.
One final thought. For more than 6 months Shirley and I did not speak, we led separate lives apart from the odd slagging match. The house was for sale. She wanted a new life with a Yorkshire terrier. It was a sad affair.
One day she said she didn’t want anyone else to be with me.
That was rather poignant.
No one had ever said that to me before.
It is easy to demolish, takes so much longer to construct. Plants take time to flourish, buildings too to rise into the sky.
I said no one wants me. Well Shirley did, and it was not a case of surely not.
I thank her for that.
Sunday, 11 October 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3_Q96eJr1k
On Friday midday after another week, only 55 hours mind you, not the usual 60, this rather beautiful, even stunning, manageress of a hairdressers I deliver to about 3 times a week in Peterbrough remarks as I come through her door “ My god you look shattered”. Well when someone as beautiful as her, shoots you down in flames, it kinda hurts, even though I have only ever seen her sitting…… in incredible dress style at her front desk, therefore I can only presume she walks as well as talks, as she has a different dress on every time. Qed.
What is it about hairdressers, and I have known a few, even slept with them, and lived with them…..mirror mirror on the wall who is stunning make up and all.
So having gone in there thinking I am still 27 mental age, crash bang wallop, well not quite past the sell by date, but the knocks are beginning to show (poetic licence).
Of course as on Tuesday when another lady remarked “are you happy in your work”, a smile helps them but also me, yet a troubled mind does not lend itself to smiling.
When I was long distance driving, I could contemplate my steering wheel and think of times gone by. Hence some of the older post entries on this blog. Making 72 deliveries and several collections, there is not much time to compile a memoirs , hence the slow down in building this insight into Allan Sharpe and what makes him tic or toc …or even rock!!!
My depot manager is intrigued. He is a nice bloke, though suffers from the headless chicken syndrome, such are the things that go wrong wrong wrong. ( 9 drivers leave in one week replaced by 7 guinea pigs to be trained, by the likes of 12 week wonder …yes me). I did make a suggestion last week how to resolve a certain problem of identification of timed deliveries, which was not rocket science, and only what other firms do. At least they said good idea, and lets do it, sort it Allan, which I did. Lets see on Monday if they don’t forget.
The Manager has asked me what I have done before, because of the way I have typed up analysis of my own observations for him. So I told him a bit, not much, just headline bullet points. He said so this is just a job then, yes I said, a port in a storm, I have done better, but such is age discrimination. Ah back to the age page.
But I don’t let this lot down, I have never let anyone down, I don’t think. I have always given my all, and communicated as and when I could.
This is now turning philosophical, but I have been let down by people moving goalposts and deceit of late. There is no need to name names when they read this they will know I am referring to them. You do all you can for someone and they take all you give and then don’t find the time of day for you, but only for others.
Its called backing the wrong horse, and it becomes a battle of heart and mind as they play computer and mind games with you via the internet.
I used to spend a lot of time playing Civilisation a strategy computer game where you start as a caveman and end up as a space man and Emperor of an Empire. Now I play all manner of games on King.com the world’s largest casual gamming site, where you can be pinball wizard, tenpin striker, scrabble champion, card maverick, snooker master. You can also chat to and make friends. You can also make enemies.
These social networking sites suck in some weirdo’s who masquerade in the anonymity of the internet. There are also a lot of lonely unhappy players, who try to relax and play games, escape their reality of life as they know it. Some say they are happily married and yet night after night , hour after hour, they are on line playing computer games and flirting.
However, just like Eastenders, King is a soap opera. Sexual perverts abound, mind game players too, players that lead you up a garden path and pretend it is a golden path. All the time they are flirting with others, and when you discover the truth, its game over player 1.
Don’t change, don’t change your mind, for I have not changed mine.
I am still the same person, but you are not, and if you were, I would not have been here with you at the start. So now it’s over and I will depart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht8JDbWUM1E
Summer came and passed away,
Hardly seemed to last a day,
But it's over,
And what can I do.
Music playin' in the air,
Silence on a darkened stair,
Cos it's over,
And what can I do.
It's over, It's over, all over,
It's over all over now,
And the way you looked
Don't even mean I'm down.
(It's over)
When you kick out the sea
And the sun says goodbye
There is nothing much to speak of.
(Getting down, down)
(It's all over)
(Getting down, down, down)
(Hurry baby, it's all over now, rose up to see)
Lookin' over sunny days,
(Searchin', searchin')
Searchin' for the righteous wave,
'Cos it's over,
All gone, what can I do
Lookin' from the distant shore,
(Distant shore)
You ain't sailin' by no more,
'Cos it's over,
(It's over)
And what can I do.
It's over, It's over, all over,
It's over all over now,
And the way you looked
Don't even mean I'm down.
It's over, over
(It's over)
When you kick out the sea
And the sun says goodbye
There is nothing much to speak of.
(Getting down, down)
(It's all over)
(Getting down, down, down)
Ha, it's over, it's over, it's over
It's all over
(And what can I do)
Ha, it's over, it's over, it's over,
It's all over
(Oh, it's over, it's over, don't shed a tear for me
it's over, don't shed a tear it's over oh no, it's over)
Devil in Disguise: Elvis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3_Q96eJr1k
What is it about hairdressers, and I have known a few, even slept with them, and lived with them…..mirror mirror on the wall who is stunning make up and all.
So having gone in there thinking I am still 27 mental age, crash bang wallop, well not quite past the sell by date, but the knocks are beginning to show (poetic licence).
Of course as on Tuesday when another lady remarked “are you happy in your work”, a smile helps them but also me, yet a troubled mind does not lend itself to smiling.
When I was long distance driving, I could contemplate my steering wheel and think of times gone by. Hence some of the older post entries on this blog. Making 72 deliveries and several collections, there is not much time to compile a memoirs , hence the slow down in building this insight into Allan Sharpe and what makes him tic or toc …or even rock!!!
My depot manager is intrigued. He is a nice bloke, though suffers from the headless chicken syndrome, such are the things that go wrong wrong wrong. ( 9 drivers leave in one week replaced by 7 guinea pigs to be trained, by the likes of 12 week wonder …yes me). I did make a suggestion last week how to resolve a certain problem of identification of timed deliveries, which was not rocket science, and only what other firms do. At least they said good idea, and lets do it, sort it Allan, which I did. Lets see on Monday if they don’t forget.
The Manager has asked me what I have done before, because of the way I have typed up analysis of my own observations for him. So I told him a bit, not much, just headline bullet points. He said so this is just a job then, yes I said, a port in a storm, I have done better, but such is age discrimination. Ah back to the age page.
But I don’t let this lot down, I have never let anyone down, I don’t think. I have always given my all, and communicated as and when I could.
This is now turning philosophical, but I have been let down by people moving goalposts and deceit of late. There is no need to name names when they read this they will know I am referring to them. You do all you can for someone and they take all you give and then don’t find the time of day for you, but only for others.
Its called backing the wrong horse, and it becomes a battle of heart and mind as they play computer and mind games with you via the internet.
I used to spend a lot of time playing Civilisation a strategy computer game where you start as a caveman and end up as a space man and Emperor of an Empire. Now I play all manner of games on King.com the world’s largest casual gamming site, where you can be pinball wizard, tenpin striker, scrabble champion, card maverick, snooker master. You can also chat to and make friends. You can also make enemies.
These social networking sites suck in some weirdo’s who masquerade in the anonymity of the internet. There are also a lot of lonely unhappy players, who try to relax and play games, escape their reality of life as they know it. Some say they are happily married and yet night after night , hour after hour, they are on line playing computer games and flirting.
However, just like Eastenders, King is a soap opera. Sexual perverts abound, mind game players too, players that lead you up a garden path and pretend it is a golden path. All the time they are flirting with others, and when you discover the truth, its game over player 1.
Don’t change, don’t change your mind, for I have not changed mine.
I am still the same person, but you are not, and if you were, I would not have been here with you at the start. So now it’s over and I will depart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht8JDbWUM1E
Summer came and passed away,
Hardly seemed to last a day,
But it's over,
And what can I do.
Music playin' in the air,
Silence on a darkened stair,
Cos it's over,
And what can I do.
It's over, It's over, all over,
It's over all over now,
And the way you looked
Don't even mean I'm down.
(It's over)
When you kick out the sea
And the sun says goodbye
There is nothing much to speak of.
(Getting down, down)
(It's all over)
(Getting down, down, down)
(Hurry baby, it's all over now, rose up to see)
Lookin' over sunny days,
(Searchin', searchin')
Searchin' for the righteous wave,
'Cos it's over,
All gone, what can I do
Lookin' from the distant shore,
(Distant shore)
You ain't sailin' by no more,
'Cos it's over,
(It's over)
And what can I do.
It's over, It's over, all over,
It's over all over now,
And the way you looked
Don't even mean I'm down.
It's over, over
(It's over)
When you kick out the sea
And the sun says goodbye
There is nothing much to speak of.
(Getting down, down)
(It's all over)
(Getting down, down, down)
Ha, it's over, it's over, it's over
It's all over
(And what can I do)
Ha, it's over, it's over, it's over,
It's all over
(Oh, it's over, it's over, don't shed a tear for me
it's over, don't shed a tear it's over oh no, it's over)
Devil in Disguise: Elvis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3_Q96eJr1k
Friday, 11 September 2009
that was another week that was
That was the Week That was
Another week flies by from I don’t like Mondays to Thank God its Friday. BUT…..I won’t do anything this weekend apart from go down the pub and watch Spurs play Man Utd on Saturday 5:30pm on ESPN. I’ll totter around the garden, play a few computer games, clean the car, recharge my batteries then it will be Monday morning 05:45 alarmingly again!!
Harry Redknapp is Manager of the Month, Jermain Defoe is Player of the Month, so that has put a death wish on Spurs beating a team I hate with avengeance, who always seem to have the referee in a red shirt too.
“Come on you Spuuuurrrrrrrrsssssssssss”
This wishing your life away week by week is not good though, blink and you will miss it, well what was that, that was your life mate, oh, cant I have another go, no , game over player one, b,,,,,,,,,s !!
I was thinking today , behind my steering wheel, that some of this slave driving is quite fun in circumstances. I do have mission impossible days, and send an sos which gets zero response. In Peterborough City Centre , delivering all sorts to all persons, come half past five it is game over for me and them. I have hardly any residential addresses, its all shops, stores , schools, offices. But some people you meet in the whirlwind created by Mr Delivery Man , are quite pleasant, and some you can even joke with, like the man having one wheel delivered, and I say, expecting another 3 tomorrow then !! It is good to see their faces, stunned of Peterborough. Then one today “It is 6.15 late for a delivery “ says this Indian corner shop keeper, the sort that are open all hours. “I was expecting this by 12”, it was a standard delivery which means by end of day. “Well 6.15 is late I grant you , especially as I started at 7 this morning” I replied, “as for your expectations, Charles Dickens wrote a book Great Expectations, have you read it.” Shut him up.
I must admit as a Trading Standards Officer, a lot of people hate you apart from the ones you are fighting for in the justice stakes. For instance, Essex women at those singles dances would baulk when I told them my job, as they were from Chav centre, and loved fakes, or Car Dealers would curse me, saying I hope you die from some incurable lingering death, or “there is a terrible smell round here”. To be fair to them I was always professional and doing my job well, and lots of people hate authority. I developed a thick skin, Rhino Hide, not just water off a duck, but I am still human, of flesh and bloods and things. Even as a Smoke Free Officer the smokers and some publicans muttered, here comes the Gestapo. Not so, but it’s all relative isn’t it. I was never a local government pencil neck. Now I deliver to local authority officers who are clearly on a different time dimension to me, and I must seem a blur to them, whereas they are in slow motion to me.
But fellow courier drivers are friendly to me, even the competition, and some clients are too, even getting excited as to what’s in the cardboard box, “nothing “ I have said once or twice, “its just an empty box to get you all excited for nothing ha ha“ There are a few ars……es around like a 4’12” runt in the goods in of a Dept Store I deliver to, who moans about 4pm deliveries. I must admit if I worked with him, he would have ended up like his look alike Robin Fernly at school, a nasty little weasel, and he ended up at the end of my right arm by the scruff of the neck pinned against a brick wall, always worked in getting the message across I found, even if the bloke was a 5’12” irritant. Another game while I work is notching up little taxi emblems on my wings like the Spitfire pilot and his swastikas, and a bigger emblem for buses too. Well a little boy said to his Dad today walking past me, “Daddy that’s a big van”, so the emblems are easy to notch up. Peterborough Council town planners must have a scaletrics set and lego, they have bizarre one way systems and few places to unload. They channel traffic to that it snarls up and pollutes at traffic lights that are phased on warp factor -273. The shopping centre underground service area has more than half its lifts caput at any one time. Really you wonder how the people in so called charge expect the shops to sell things to shoppers.
But there are some normal people about, I spot them too, though they are a rare endangered species. They can make the job pleasant and not so monotonous. EG. the ones that banter “sign above” “My name is not above” derrrrrr, “its Harris”, a hoo hoo hoo, and there are even ones that smile at me (always the female of the species) when I appear slave driven. “Have you brought me a present?” “Well as it’s you…….. err no, but it is special delivery”, “why is it special”, because it’s delivered my me of course!!!”
A quiz I play on the computer reckons a man loses 2.8 litres of water in perspiration a day, well I have no need to phone a friend or ask the audience on that one, not even 50-50, ‘cos it takes me an hour to load the truck each morning and from then on I drink about 4 litres of water, in sunny Peterborough.
I still hate the hand held computer that scans all the incoming and outgoing. User friendly it is not, one sequence one way only it is, mistake you make is irreversible, indestructible it is, technology replaceable it should be. A computer that is not logical, now that’s an invention !!
It seems to me that we are coming out of recession now though. When I started, was it just 7 weeks ago, blimey, it was only the computer games shops and mobile phone shops that had sizeable deliveries, now I need a tin can opener to take the roof off to get everything loaded.
I still wonder how the former Deputy Editor of BBCTV Watchdog can come to this, and from earning £33k in the ‘90s now it is £20k. Especially when on the radio I hear about the fat cats of the Banks and the 4 fat cats that did very nicely thank you out of killing Rover a British Icon, and a make of car I always cherished and owned. I would have made a programme exposing them long ago, but that was then and this is now.
Those were the days my friend we thought they’d never end……………but they did, just like last week came to an end too.
Another week flies by from I don’t like Mondays to Thank God its Friday. BUT…..I won’t do anything this weekend apart from go down the pub and watch Spurs play Man Utd on Saturday 5:30pm on ESPN. I’ll totter around the garden, play a few computer games, clean the car, recharge my batteries then it will be Monday morning 05:45 alarmingly again!!
Harry Redknapp is Manager of the Month, Jermain Defoe is Player of the Month, so that has put a death wish on Spurs beating a team I hate with avengeance, who always seem to have the referee in a red shirt too.
“Come on you Spuuuurrrrrrrrsssssssssss”
This wishing your life away week by week is not good though, blink and you will miss it, well what was that, that was your life mate, oh, cant I have another go, no , game over player one, b,,,,,,,,,s !!
I was thinking today , behind my steering wheel, that some of this slave driving is quite fun in circumstances. I do have mission impossible days, and send an sos which gets zero response. In Peterborough City Centre , delivering all sorts to all persons, come half past five it is game over for me and them. I have hardly any residential addresses, its all shops, stores , schools, offices. But some people you meet in the whirlwind created by Mr Delivery Man , are quite pleasant, and some you can even joke with, like the man having one wheel delivered, and I say, expecting another 3 tomorrow then !! It is good to see their faces, stunned of Peterborough. Then one today “It is 6.15 late for a delivery “ says this Indian corner shop keeper, the sort that are open all hours. “I was expecting this by 12”, it was a standard delivery which means by end of day. “Well 6.15 is late I grant you , especially as I started at 7 this morning” I replied, “as for your expectations, Charles Dickens wrote a book Great Expectations, have you read it.” Shut him up.
I must admit as a Trading Standards Officer, a lot of people hate you apart from the ones you are fighting for in the justice stakes. For instance, Essex women at those singles dances would baulk when I told them my job, as they were from Chav centre, and loved fakes, or Car Dealers would curse me, saying I hope you die from some incurable lingering death, or “there is a terrible smell round here”. To be fair to them I was always professional and doing my job well, and lots of people hate authority. I developed a thick skin, Rhino Hide, not just water off a duck, but I am still human, of flesh and bloods and things. Even as a Smoke Free Officer the smokers and some publicans muttered, here comes the Gestapo. Not so, but it’s all relative isn’t it. I was never a local government pencil neck. Now I deliver to local authority officers who are clearly on a different time dimension to me, and I must seem a blur to them, whereas they are in slow motion to me.
But fellow courier drivers are friendly to me, even the competition, and some clients are too, even getting excited as to what’s in the cardboard box, “nothing “ I have said once or twice, “its just an empty box to get you all excited for nothing ha ha“ There are a few ars……es around like a 4’12” runt in the goods in of a Dept Store I deliver to, who moans about 4pm deliveries. I must admit if I worked with him, he would have ended up like his look alike Robin Fernly at school, a nasty little weasel, and he ended up at the end of my right arm by the scruff of the neck pinned against a brick wall, always worked in getting the message across I found, even if the bloke was a 5’12” irritant. Another game while I work is notching up little taxi emblems on my wings like the Spitfire pilot and his swastikas, and a bigger emblem for buses too. Well a little boy said to his Dad today walking past me, “Daddy that’s a big van”, so the emblems are easy to notch up. Peterborough Council town planners must have a scaletrics set and lego, they have bizarre one way systems and few places to unload. They channel traffic to that it snarls up and pollutes at traffic lights that are phased on warp factor -273. The shopping centre underground service area has more than half its lifts caput at any one time. Really you wonder how the people in so called charge expect the shops to sell things to shoppers.
But there are some normal people about, I spot them too, though they are a rare endangered species. They can make the job pleasant and not so monotonous. EG. the ones that banter “sign above” “My name is not above” derrrrrr, “its Harris”, a hoo hoo hoo, and there are even ones that smile at me (always the female of the species) when I appear slave driven. “Have you brought me a present?” “Well as it’s you…….. err no, but it is special delivery”, “why is it special”, because it’s delivered my me of course!!!”
A quiz I play on the computer reckons a man loses 2.8 litres of water in perspiration a day, well I have no need to phone a friend or ask the audience on that one, not even 50-50, ‘cos it takes me an hour to load the truck each morning and from then on I drink about 4 litres of water, in sunny Peterborough.
I still hate the hand held computer that scans all the incoming and outgoing. User friendly it is not, one sequence one way only it is, mistake you make is irreversible, indestructible it is, technology replaceable it should be. A computer that is not logical, now that’s an invention !!
It seems to me that we are coming out of recession now though. When I started, was it just 7 weeks ago, blimey, it was only the computer games shops and mobile phone shops that had sizeable deliveries, now I need a tin can opener to take the roof off to get everything loaded.
I still wonder how the former Deputy Editor of BBCTV Watchdog can come to this, and from earning £33k in the ‘90s now it is £20k. Especially when on the radio I hear about the fat cats of the Banks and the 4 fat cats that did very nicely thank you out of killing Rover a British Icon, and a make of car I always cherished and owned. I would have made a programme exposing them long ago, but that was then and this is now.
Those were the days my friend we thought they’d never end……………but they did, just like last week came to an end too.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
It Started with a Kiss
It Started with a Kiss.....Never thought it could be like this. I was kissed by someone once and it blew my socks off........except I was not wearing any !!! She made me tremble when I kissed her lips, I wanted to hold her hand and dance the night away. Had I told her lately that I loved her.............yes.
Baby I was Amazed. I could have been her Hero, I could have taken her pain and stood beside her for ever, she certainly took my breath away. But she would not listen to her heart, she was a pretty woman walking down the street, you know the kinda woman I would like to meet. She looked wonderful every night. Oh my love, my darling, I hungered for her touch, a long lonely time, but she lost that loving feeling, and it was just my imagination running away with me.
That's just the way it is I guess. There was never enough time in a bottle to do what we should have done. Everything I did, I did it for her, she was always on my mind.
Why hasn't anyone written a song about priorities, I suppose Dolly Parton did advise Relate about stand by your man.
How do I live without her, well life goes on, love was all around, but it was not here, it took 2 to Tango, one can't do it alone, love goes on the rocks, that is no big surprise. So that's what happens...alone...and till now always got by on my own. When you are the person in a relationship and you are upset and they are not, there is something fundamentally wrong.
Who is she ???????? oh just a combination of the past, memories like the corners of my mind, of the way we were.......................
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJyJwbAa1i8
Amazed by Lonestar probably the best romantic song ever recorded, it says so on the Carlsberg Label.
Every time our eyes meet
This feeling inside me
Is almost more than I can take
Baby when you touch me
I can feel how much you love me
And it just blows me away
I've never been this close to anyone or anything
I can hear your thoughts
I can see your dreams
I don't know how you do what you do
I'm so in love with you
It just keeps getting better
I want to spend the rest of my life
With you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby, I'm amazed by you
The smell of your skin
The taste of your kiss
The way you whisper in the dark
Your hair all around me
Baby you surround me
You touch every place in my heart
Oh, it feels like the first time, every time
I want to spend the whole night in your eyes
Every little thing that you do
I'm so in love with you
It just keeps getting better
I want to spend the rest of my life
With you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby, I'm amazed by you
SIGH !!!
Baby I was Amazed. I could have been her Hero, I could have taken her pain and stood beside her for ever, she certainly took my breath away. But she would not listen to her heart, she was a pretty woman walking down the street, you know the kinda woman I would like to meet. She looked wonderful every night. Oh my love, my darling, I hungered for her touch, a long lonely time, but she lost that loving feeling, and it was just my imagination running away with me.
That's just the way it is I guess. There was never enough time in a bottle to do what we should have done. Everything I did, I did it for her, she was always on my mind.
Why hasn't anyone written a song about priorities, I suppose Dolly Parton did advise Relate about stand by your man.
How do I live without her, well life goes on, love was all around, but it was not here, it took 2 to Tango, one can't do it alone, love goes on the rocks, that is no big surprise. So that's what happens...alone...and till now always got by on my own. When you are the person in a relationship and you are upset and they are not, there is something fundamentally wrong.
Who is she ???????? oh just a combination of the past, memories like the corners of my mind, of the way we were.......................
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJyJwbAa1i8
Amazed by Lonestar probably the best romantic song ever recorded, it says so on the Carlsberg Label.
Every time our eyes meet
This feeling inside me
Is almost more than I can take
Baby when you touch me
I can feel how much you love me
And it just blows me away
I've never been this close to anyone or anything
I can hear your thoughts
I can see your dreams
I don't know how you do what you do
I'm so in love with you
It just keeps getting better
I want to spend the rest of my life
With you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby, I'm amazed by you
The smell of your skin
The taste of your kiss
The way you whisper in the dark
Your hair all around me
Baby you surround me
You touch every place in my heart
Oh, it feels like the first time, every time
I want to spend the whole night in your eyes
Every little thing that you do
I'm so in love with you
It just keeps getting better
I want to spend the rest of my life
With you by my side
Forever and ever
Every little thing that you do
Baby, I'm amazed by you
SIGH !!!
Find me Somebody to Love
Love Train
Now that I have a job, at least for the time being, I have now embarked on the dating agency routine again. I don’t sign up to pay sites, and I must admit I am really fussy in my selection of availability. So it’s photo first, then location, age, non smoker then scan the profile, then send a short message, witty as possible, original as I can be, complimentary chat up line, then wait.
Most get no response like the firework that when lit, nothing happens and you wait and wait then give up and walk away. In these days of equal opportunities how many women ask men to dance, and how many women can just lay there and wait for the man !!!
So, I find myself again at a cross roads. Summer has passed me by, just like Bank Holidays, I like beauty, style, poise and grace. I like sharing, what is the point of looking solo, not much. I also need to hold hands, and care about somebody.
Can anybody, find me, somebody to….. love.
When I was a school boy most kids at school had mums and dads. Yes the dad was down the pub every night, but I was the only kid at school with a single parent , my poor mum.
Now, what the American army used to connect their nuclear weapon silos against the Russians, yes the original internet before it went www, is awash with men and women from broken relationships all with their handbags and glad rags. All looking for the special one, but he got the sack from Chelsea a few seasons ago, and he was never replaced with a more special one !!
Grass Greener, well it takes 2 to tango and 1 to sabotage.
It’s a shame we can’t be more tolerant to each other, it’s a shame you can’t say to someone on the passing escalator, Christ you’re beautiful here is my phone number. We get more set in our ways as we get older and supposedly wiser, yet how our lifestyles can be so different and all the carrier bags and differing priorities.
I delivered to a house today full of Eastern Europeans, no not Eastern Promise, and cigarette smoke blowing out as the front door opened at least 5 small children there breathing in all the fumes. Then some live in squalor, mess and filth and I hold my breath until they shut the door.
I don’t know any one as clean and tidy as me, and I don’t care if she is a Pamela Anderson look a like, if she was a scruff in the home and a fag ash Lill, I would be exiting stage left pronto.
So love is all around, great expectations, hopes will be dashed, better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.
Its another roll of the dice and see where Mr Blue Sky lands, is it on the snake or the ladder, miss one go or ahead 10 spaces. I used to live next door to a man who looked much older than me but he probably wasn’t , he lived with his son. The house and garden was a tip. He stayed in all day every day, greasy hair, worse dressed man about town. I think he had given up on women and life apart from driving to the corner shop every morning to get a newspaper, yes he did not walk either. And my Mum, she had her admirers nothing long lasting, but she preferred animals to humans, she could trust them more.
As for me, I wear my heart on my sleeve, yes I put deflector shields up, but I have too much romance, passion and compassion. Some will never see it, some have abused it, maybe one day somebody will hold the key and will never let go, maybe.
So let dating commence winner takes all………..and maybe me !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuV-Rw4H-wA
I was born under a bad sign,
Left out in the cold
I’m a lonely man who knows
Just what it means to lose control
But, I took all the heartache
And turned it to shame,
Now I’m moving, moving on,
And I ain’t taking the blame
Don’t come running to me,
I know I’ve done all I can
A hard loving woman like you
Just makes a hard loving man
So I can say it to you, babe
Ill be a fool for your loving no more,
A fool for your loving no more
I’m so tired of trying, I always end up crying,
Fool for your loving no more
Ill be a fool for your loving no more
I’m tired of hiding my feelings,
You left me lonely too long
I gave my heart, and you tore it apart,
Oh, baby, you done me wrong
Don’t come running to me,
I know I’ve done all I can
A hard loving woman like you
Just makes a hard loving man
So I can say it to you, babe
Ill be a fool for your loving no more,
A fool for your loving no more
I’m so tired of trying, I always end up crying,
Fool for your loving no more
Ill be a fool for your loving no more
Ill be a fool for your loving no more, no more, no more
So I can say it to you, babe
Ill be a fool for your loving no more,
A fool for your loving no more
I’m so tired of trying, I always end up crying,
Fool for your loving no more
A fool for your loving no more
Fool for your loving no more...
Saturday, 22 August 2009
The Logic of Logistics
That was the Week That was : Episode 87 -The Logic of Logistics
It was a hot humid day…………most days of last week. Driving a courier van in that weather is like driving a baking tin in an oven regulo 6.
So much so that when I delivered rolls of fabric to the Silk Centre the Indian woman said to me “have you come from Bombay?” No it was not a late delivery, my reply was “Northampton, a bit closer than Bombay” so she might have been nuts or just remarking that I looked hot and bothered.
It’s a job. On Thursday I was out of the house for 14 hours making 70 stops. The depot is half and hour from my house, the depot is an hour from Peterborough city centre, my zone. As it’s pedestrianised series of shopping areas there is a lot of walking with a set of wheels for boxes. I do like the job, don’t like the hours, but none of the drivers do. One driver keeps a photo of himself on the mantelpiece – “who’s that Mummy”, his children ask, “that’s your Daddy children, he’s at work”.
I have my own bay at the depot and the only one with my name printed out, everybody else has post codes, I have my name. I don’t think it’s ‘cos they think I am thick, I think it’s to help the depot unloaders to put my loads in the right place. I also have a bigger truck now, the other one’s were to small………………. So everyone says Good Morning Allan, and I know about 5 names, so the rest of the time I just say Hi back.
I won’t mention the names, because last time I did the agency that got me work was asked to attend a meeting with this other freight company about my day in the life of with them and a manic co driver intent on wrecking the truck and getting the sack. Though the agency had a good laugh at my observations, I need this current job, hence no names. For the curious followers of this blog go back to the week leading up to Christmas and my account of the passenger and the driver from hell.
Getting back to present day, it was Thursday that was my worse day so far , the highlight low light being this scenario:-
I drive up to the service area entrance shutters, ring the security bell, I am told the shutters are jammed shut, the computer has gone wrong. Pause for thought there. Has it come to this that we now need a computer to pull up a roller shutter, and is there no mechanical override like a chain, no health and safety can’t use the chain…cobblers.
Impossible to park as well in the streets, buses and taxis only, one way systems, road works, barriers you name it, it is there. 4 drivers have been tried and failed on this route in 2 months, I am the 5th, I am winning so far. Developers and Architects build these shopping centres but never think shops have to sell things and it is not all washing machines from the planet Zanussi beaming down through the roof.
So, the immovable shutters, no oxy acetylene torch to hand, I decide to get this small parcel to the shop in the shopping mall, like a 5 minute walk. The Manager can’t sign for it over the front counter, why not, it’s the rules, the shutter is down, no matter, the shutter is down and his lights are not on. OK I say I will walk through your shop to the back. Can’t do that he says there is no way from the front to the back. Blimey, we’ve got a right one here. So how do you get your stock from the back to the front then, tell you what don’t worry I take this box back and when the shutter is fixed in a few days you can have it then, bye.
Well Mr Jobsworth you win today’s star plonker of the day award.
I am not paid to think, just to do what I am told………………..derrrrrrrrr
Me, no lunch, nothing to eat all day, just drinking water, working time directive ??? yeah sure, no time to stop that day.
On the flip side I was asked by the depot to collect from a shop that had been closed for 3 months……………dooo doo do do !!!
And I have had 3 vans, all defective, some of the defects I fixed myself. Got stuck outside the passport office on double yellow lines and a bend, the van was dead when I got back in, but after 20 minutes I got in going again. The week before the clutch on another van, just fitted with a £500 new clutch, was burning and all the dashboard warning lights were illuminated in competition with the Blackpool Pleasure Beach Illuminations. I still got that one back too.
No overtime, just s slavery salary, just below the national average. But it’s a job. I must admit on Thursday morning waking up by alarm at 05.45 hours, it took me to 05.50 hours to figure out what day it was, and one tends to wish one’s life away, can’t wait to finish, thank god it’s Friday. But it’s a job, and Gordon Brown, our Prime Minister, and Alistair Darling, his Chancellor, have good jobs, allowances and salaries, but the rest of us fight to survive. Unlike the fat cats at the banks that have all the taxpayers money to bail them out of the mess they put us in and keep us in.
3 wheels on my wagon, but I’m still rolling along, no Cherokees after me, no flaming spears to burn my ears, and I listen to the test match as I go along, singing hippytty happytty hoppitty hi, pioneers they never say die, and we can watch our lives …… go galloping by.
It was a hot humid day…………most days of last week. Driving a courier van in that weather is like driving a baking tin in an oven regulo 6.
So much so that when I delivered rolls of fabric to the Silk Centre the Indian woman said to me “have you come from Bombay?” No it was not a late delivery, my reply was “Northampton, a bit closer than Bombay” so she might have been nuts or just remarking that I looked hot and bothered.
It’s a job. On Thursday I was out of the house for 14 hours making 70 stops. The depot is half and hour from my house, the depot is an hour from Peterborough city centre, my zone. As it’s pedestrianised series of shopping areas there is a lot of walking with a set of wheels for boxes. I do like the job, don’t like the hours, but none of the drivers do. One driver keeps a photo of himself on the mantelpiece – “who’s that Mummy”, his children ask, “that’s your Daddy children, he’s at work”.
I have my own bay at the depot and the only one with my name printed out, everybody else has post codes, I have my name. I don’t think it’s ‘cos they think I am thick, I think it’s to help the depot unloaders to put my loads in the right place. I also have a bigger truck now, the other one’s were to small………………. So everyone says Good Morning Allan, and I know about 5 names, so the rest of the time I just say Hi back.
I won’t mention the names, because last time I did the agency that got me work was asked to attend a meeting with this other freight company about my day in the life of with them and a manic co driver intent on wrecking the truck and getting the sack. Though the agency had a good laugh at my observations, I need this current job, hence no names. For the curious followers of this blog go back to the week leading up to Christmas and my account of the passenger and the driver from hell.
Getting back to present day, it was Thursday that was my worse day so far , the highlight low light being this scenario:-
I drive up to the service area entrance shutters, ring the security bell, I am told the shutters are jammed shut, the computer has gone wrong. Pause for thought there. Has it come to this that we now need a computer to pull up a roller shutter, and is there no mechanical override like a chain, no health and safety can’t use the chain…cobblers.
Impossible to park as well in the streets, buses and taxis only, one way systems, road works, barriers you name it, it is there. 4 drivers have been tried and failed on this route in 2 months, I am the 5th, I am winning so far. Developers and Architects build these shopping centres but never think shops have to sell things and it is not all washing machines from the planet Zanussi beaming down through the roof.
So, the immovable shutters, no oxy acetylene torch to hand, I decide to get this small parcel to the shop in the shopping mall, like a 5 minute walk. The Manager can’t sign for it over the front counter, why not, it’s the rules, the shutter is down, no matter, the shutter is down and his lights are not on. OK I say I will walk through your shop to the back. Can’t do that he says there is no way from the front to the back. Blimey, we’ve got a right one here. So how do you get your stock from the back to the front then, tell you what don’t worry I take this box back and when the shutter is fixed in a few days you can have it then, bye.
Well Mr Jobsworth you win today’s star plonker of the day award.
I am not paid to think, just to do what I am told………………..derrrrrrrrr
Me, no lunch, nothing to eat all day, just drinking water, working time directive ??? yeah sure, no time to stop that day.
On the flip side I was asked by the depot to collect from a shop that had been closed for 3 months……………dooo doo do do !!!
And I have had 3 vans, all defective, some of the defects I fixed myself. Got stuck outside the passport office on double yellow lines and a bend, the van was dead when I got back in, but after 20 minutes I got in going again. The week before the clutch on another van, just fitted with a £500 new clutch, was burning and all the dashboard warning lights were illuminated in competition with the Blackpool Pleasure Beach Illuminations. I still got that one back too.
No overtime, just s slavery salary, just below the national average. But it’s a job. I must admit on Thursday morning waking up by alarm at 05.45 hours, it took me to 05.50 hours to figure out what day it was, and one tends to wish one’s life away, can’t wait to finish, thank god it’s Friday. But it’s a job, and Gordon Brown, our Prime Minister, and Alistair Darling, his Chancellor, have good jobs, allowances and salaries, but the rest of us fight to survive. Unlike the fat cats at the banks that have all the taxpayers money to bail them out of the mess they put us in and keep us in.
3 wheels on my wagon, but I’m still rolling along, no Cherokees after me, no flaming spears to burn my ears, and I listen to the test match as I go along, singing hippytty happytty hoppitty hi, pioneers they never say die, and we can watch our lives …… go galloping by.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Words of a Friend Indeed
The words of Ken my oldest dearest friend from school:
"Since we met, all those years ago our lives have moved in quite different directions and out journeys have been different too. I have always admired your independence, determined to be your own man. I know it has brought you highs and lows, but for me it brought great memories. Glad we are still pals long may it last".
"Whenever I think of our teenage years together,,,trips to Wembley...Bank Holidays in Brighton....our scooters...your cars...our nights out at Club Druane..the motown and soul music....Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band......a smile comes across my face as I reminisce and remember the fun times"
"Since we met, all those years ago our lives have moved in quite different directions and out journeys have been different too. I have always admired your independence, determined to be your own man. I know it has brought you highs and lows, but for me it brought great memories. Glad we are still pals long may it last".
"Whenever I think of our teenage years together,,,trips to Wembley...Bank Holidays in Brighton....our scooters...your cars...our nights out at Club Druane..the motown and soul music....Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band......a smile comes across my face as I reminisce and remember the fun times"
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
today its your birthday
Today its your birthday we're gonna have a good time.... !!
How I love birthdays not. Yes I am a Leo, proud, like lazing in the sun, prowl a lot, has been known to roar and defend with pride.
Well I have asked every year for the elixir of life and Father Christmas has never brought it, nor the women in Christmas stockings, so I don’t believe in him anymore.
But this year was a milestone, that I would rather ignore, but cant avoid, its called life as we know it. I did get some nice phone calls, ecards, birthday cards, presents. I got some tender words, that meant a lot to me from close friends.
I performed karaoke to Status Quo and pretended I had a guitar . I performed the video to Amarillo by marching round the dance floor and occasionally grabbing some unsuspecting volunteers. Because on the Saturday I went to a wedding reception and on the Sunday I hosted a bbq at my sisters house. All those that attended had to listen to my classic music taste, after all it was my party and I‘ll play what I want to. Good enough for a bop, You could call me Al and Sharp dressed man. Of course Status Quo live was the highlight, and Mr Blue Sky. My Way got me sad, yes even in celebration of my birthday I can put on an act and lark about, but deep inside I was blue. I find it tough being alone, even surrounded by family and friends.
Still it’s done now, onward and upward and though not the best party the world has ever seen, we had a few laughs those that turned up, and I give them my thanks.
How I love birthdays not. Yes I am a Leo, proud, like lazing in the sun, prowl a lot, has been known to roar and defend with pride.
Well I have asked every year for the elixir of life and Father Christmas has never brought it, nor the women in Christmas stockings, so I don’t believe in him anymore.
But this year was a milestone, that I would rather ignore, but cant avoid, its called life as we know it. I did get some nice phone calls, ecards, birthday cards, presents. I got some tender words, that meant a lot to me from close friends.
I performed karaoke to Status Quo and pretended I had a guitar . I performed the video to Amarillo by marching round the dance floor and occasionally grabbing some unsuspecting volunteers. Because on the Saturday I went to a wedding reception and on the Sunday I hosted a bbq at my sisters house. All those that attended had to listen to my classic music taste, after all it was my party and I‘ll play what I want to. Good enough for a bop, You could call me Al and Sharp dressed man. Of course Status Quo live was the highlight, and Mr Blue Sky. My Way got me sad, yes even in celebration of my birthday I can put on an act and lark about, but deep inside I was blue. I find it tough being alone, even surrounded by family and friends.
Still it’s done now, onward and upward and though not the best party the world has ever seen, we had a few laughs those that turned up, and I give them my thanks.
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
rainy days
What a wonderful summer. When I am out in the rain my hair reverts to my toddler hairstyle tight curls and frizz....yuk yuk yuk
So you guessed it, in the new courier job 2nd week, and I got wet. Now today in the rain, I had to deliver to this dirty house, well it was a near new house near Buckingham and it made Steptoe & Son's rag and bone yard look like a Palace. 3pm and the painted sheets were covering the windows, posing as curtains, the front door had never been cleaned, the front garden grass never cut, a true blot on the landscape. He came to the door, I held my breath and looked away, minimum contact, yuk yuk yuk. I wanted a Domestos spray, kill all known germs and this dirty git dead.
Anyway it reminded me of life of others as they know it, squalor. I have delivered furniture where bras and knickers and vests and tights were on the floor, in the hall on the stairs and here comes the delivery man tread tread tread. I have been in flats inhabited by Chinese DVD pirates and their pet cockroaches all over the carpets in every room, crunch crunch crunc. The Taxidermist in Milton Keynes, 3 cabinet freezer chest of dead animals, stink stink stink. In fact his house was so bad (he dabbled in fake printer cartridges as a side line)I opened the car window and stuck my head out down the M1 after to get the stench out of the back of my throat, yuk yuk yuk.
Finally..............one of the last deliveries, it reminded me of house hunting once, the psychedelic wallpaper purple and orange, mmmmm, and the well in the garden newts and toads. Yes witches do exist and they look and dress like witches, no broomstick, no pointed hat, but a dark evil sinister mysterious aura, ugly, big nosed, painted ladies showing a lot but not a lot worth seeing.
oooooooooo creepy, exit stage left, foot down on the accelerator, veerrrooommmm
don't come back now, hear !!!
So you guessed it, in the new courier job 2nd week, and I got wet. Now today in the rain, I had to deliver to this dirty house, well it was a near new house near Buckingham and it made Steptoe & Son's rag and bone yard look like a Palace. 3pm and the painted sheets were covering the windows, posing as curtains, the front door had never been cleaned, the front garden grass never cut, a true blot on the landscape. He came to the door, I held my breath and looked away, minimum contact, yuk yuk yuk. I wanted a Domestos spray, kill all known germs and this dirty git dead.
Anyway it reminded me of life of others as they know it, squalor. I have delivered furniture where bras and knickers and vests and tights were on the floor, in the hall on the stairs and here comes the delivery man tread tread tread. I have been in flats inhabited by Chinese DVD pirates and their pet cockroaches all over the carpets in every room, crunch crunch crunc. The Taxidermist in Milton Keynes, 3 cabinet freezer chest of dead animals, stink stink stink. In fact his house was so bad (he dabbled in fake printer cartridges as a side line)I opened the car window and stuck my head out down the M1 after to get the stench out of the back of my throat, yuk yuk yuk.
Finally..............one of the last deliveries, it reminded me of house hunting once, the psychedelic wallpaper purple and orange, mmmmm, and the well in the garden newts and toads. Yes witches do exist and they look and dress like witches, no broomstick, no pointed hat, but a dark evil sinister mysterious aura, ugly, big nosed, painted ladies showing a lot but not a lot worth seeing.
oooooooooo creepy, exit stage left, foot down on the accelerator, veerrrooommmm
don't come back now, hear !!!
Monday, 27 July 2009
I bought a bottle of beer tonight
I bought a bottle of Spitfire beer tonight at the Co-op to toast a new job £1.59. Last week in Rugby HQ interview they seemed to like me for some strange reason.
So today was a driving assessment at UPS Northampton Depot (20 miles away) in the morning and H&S safer driving dvds and presentations this afternoon. The guy in charge said lets go to the hamburger van down the road at lunchtime (I still had to cook tonight), and as we walked he casually said right you start 7;30 tomorrow. So the 1st 2 weeks is learning the ropes devices and routes until they leave me on my own as soon as I feel ready.
I am pleased to at least be employed again. The salary is about the same as my last job the smoking enforcement officer. If it works out, I just need my money to be released from these bricks and mortar and start again. I seem to always be starting again every now and then. Where ever I lay my hat thats my job. Snakes and ladders, river deep mountain high, when all I ever wanted was a plateau.
I was earning 33k during the 90's but the age discrimination gets in the way of that. Not good enough that David Groome the barrister states Allan Sharpe is the best Trading Standards officer he has ever worked with, or TV presenter Lynn Faulds Wood extolling accolades as well. No. But then again most , not all , of the interviewers were wankers anyway.
So today was a driving assessment at UPS Northampton Depot (20 miles away) in the morning and H&S safer driving dvds and presentations this afternoon. The guy in charge said lets go to the hamburger van down the road at lunchtime (I still had to cook tonight), and as we walked he casually said right you start 7;30 tomorrow. So the 1st 2 weeks is learning the ropes devices and routes until they leave me on my own as soon as I feel ready.
I am pleased to at least be employed again. The salary is about the same as my last job the smoking enforcement officer. If it works out, I just need my money to be released from these bricks and mortar and start again. I seem to always be starting again every now and then. Where ever I lay my hat thats my job. Snakes and ladders, river deep mountain high, when all I ever wanted was a plateau.
I was earning 33k during the 90's but the age discrimination gets in the way of that. Not good enough that David Groome the barrister states Allan Sharpe is the best Trading Standards officer he has ever worked with, or TV presenter Lynn Faulds Wood extolling accolades as well. No. But then again most , not all , of the interviewers were wankers anyway.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
The Status Quo
Da dang dang dang dang dang, Da dang dang dang dang dang, Da dang dang dang dang dang, delud dang,
Whatever you want
Whatever you like
Whatever you say
You pay your money
You take your choice
Whatever you need
Whatever you use
Whatever you win
Whatever you loose………Whatever you Want
Yes it was the Status Quo last night open air at Newmarket Race Course, and they were fantastic. The 1st half performance was seamless as with a guitar chord they were able to switch from Rick Parfitt singing to Rossi taking over and the next song. The audience was rocking all over the world, no one rolled over and laid down , not even sweet Caroline, and no one was down down just head banging to the guitar crescendos.
True musicians who have stood the test of time and no computerised rhythmic noise what some stupidly class as music today.
Parfitt and I used to drink and sail together on the Thames, though his boat was bigger than mine, as was his consumption, 2 bottles of vodka to my 2 pints of beer, so I usually ended up sailing his boat home. A real lovely fella though.
Whatever you want
Whatever you like
Whatever you say
You pay your money
You take your choice
Whatever you need
Whatever you use
Whatever you win
Whatever you loose………Whatever you Want
Yes it was the Status Quo last night open air at Newmarket Race Course, and they were fantastic. The 1st half performance was seamless as with a guitar chord they were able to switch from Rick Parfitt singing to Rossi taking over and the next song. The audience was rocking all over the world, no one rolled over and laid down , not even sweet Caroline, and no one was down down just head banging to the guitar crescendos.
True musicians who have stood the test of time and no computerised rhythmic noise what some stupidly class as music today.
Parfitt and I used to drink and sail together on the Thames, though his boat was bigger than mine, as was his consumption, 2 bottles of vodka to my 2 pints of beer, so I usually ended up sailing his boat home. A real lovely fella though.
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Fun
A Funny thing happened to me today on the way to an interview:
I went to Rugby today, in typical British July seasonal weather conditions, yes pouring with rain.
The local council workers are very dedicated there in Rugby, they should win an award, maybe I will try to nominate them.
It was pouring down with rain when I approached this rather pleasant roundabout called the hanging baskets of Rugby roundabout, I dont think they could afford a hanging garden. Anyway I digress, there was Mr J Obsworth and his tanker truck, in his waterproof wet suit holding an elongated hose to....,,,,,,wait for it.......
water the bloody baskets in this monsoon.
Note to the Leader of the Council: errrrrrrrr dedication to duty or I am a robot, I dont think mate I do what I am told, then bugger off home.
I went to Rugby today, in typical British July seasonal weather conditions, yes pouring with rain.
The local council workers are very dedicated there in Rugby, they should win an award, maybe I will try to nominate them.
It was pouring down with rain when I approached this rather pleasant roundabout called the hanging baskets of Rugby roundabout, I dont think they could afford a hanging garden. Anyway I digress, there was Mr J Obsworth and his tanker truck, in his waterproof wet suit holding an elongated hose to....,,,,,,wait for it.......
water the bloody baskets in this monsoon.
Note to the Leader of the Council: errrrrrrrr dedication to duty or I am a robot, I dont think mate I do what I am told, then bugger off home.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Hero
Sometimes the river flows but nothing breathes.
A train arrives but never leaves.
It's a shame.
Oh life like love that walks out of the door.
Of being rich or being poor.
Such a shame.
But it's then, then that faith arrives.
To make you feel at least alive.
And that's why you should keep on aiming high.
Just seek yourself and you will shine
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself.
Search for the secrets you hide.
Search for the hero inside yourself.
Until you find the key to your life.
In this life long and hard though it may seem
Live it as you'd live a dream.
Aim so high.
Just keep the flame of truth burning bright.
The missing treasure you must find.
Because you and only you alone.
Can build a bridge across the stream.
Weave your spell in life's rich tapestry.
Your passport to a feel supreme.
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself.
Search for the secrets you hide.
Search for the hero inside yourself.
Until you find the key to your life.
A train arrives but never leaves.
It's a shame.
Oh life like love that walks out of the door.
Of being rich or being poor.
Such a shame.
But it's then, then that faith arrives.
To make you feel at least alive.
And that's why you should keep on aiming high.
Just seek yourself and you will shine
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself.
Search for the secrets you hide.
Search for the hero inside yourself.
Until you find the key to your life.
In this life long and hard though it may seem
Live it as you'd live a dream.
Aim so high.
Just keep the flame of truth burning bright.
The missing treasure you must find.
Because you and only you alone.
Can build a bridge across the stream.
Weave your spell in life's rich tapestry.
Your passport to a feel supreme.
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself.
Search for the secrets you hide.
Search for the hero inside yourself.
Until you find the key to your life.
How not to Interview Someone
There are 3 types of Consumer what are they?
When is an interview not a job interview but an oral test?
I passed my Government Qualification in 1971. I am not a rookie anymore, well past the sell by date. Sell be dates never existed when I was young. Nor do I appreciate being interviewed by kindergarten pencil necks either.
Short list me from my extensive knowledge and experience Curriculum Vitae resume and application, just don’t ask me daft questions, that is what exams are for. Maybe better to ask me also what I have done rather than continue on the technical question and theoretical answer sequence. I really felt like walking out. Honestly.
Hold on can I open that window and ask the audience, can I go 50/50 on that one, I say let me phone a friend.
Some interviews are solid, psychometric test, presentation then 150 minutes of discussion. However being shown round the office and introduced to would be team mates is weird because you probably won't ever see those would be team mates ever again. Nice gesture - false hopes - false smiles. Some interviews are just what do you think of its so far = rubbish and are tin pot 30 minutes and hopeless. Is that the way they select someone to work for them for the next eon of years on 30 mins question and answer, technical questions and an on line application form, I think not. Waste of money advertising and recruiting. Well I don’t want to work at what resemble Hitler’s bunker anyway. Hundreds of lemmings surrounded by metal filing cabinets no natural light, just oceans of fluorescents, how depressing being a mushroom there. WW111 could kick off but they would not have a clue.
Oh and btw, they have insufficient car park space for a job that is essential car user. They only have 80% capacity. So the barrier only lets you in to park 4 days out of 5. On the 5th day you either work from home or stay out all day, but you don’t come into the office.
Whacky Racers heehehehehehehehhehehehehe
When is an interview not a job interview but an oral test?
I passed my Government Qualification in 1971. I am not a rookie anymore, well past the sell by date. Sell be dates never existed when I was young. Nor do I appreciate being interviewed by kindergarten pencil necks either.
Short list me from my extensive knowledge and experience Curriculum Vitae resume and application, just don’t ask me daft questions, that is what exams are for. Maybe better to ask me also what I have done rather than continue on the technical question and theoretical answer sequence. I really felt like walking out. Honestly.
Hold on can I open that window and ask the audience, can I go 50/50 on that one, I say let me phone a friend.
Some interviews are solid, psychometric test, presentation then 150 minutes of discussion. However being shown round the office and introduced to would be team mates is weird because you probably won't ever see those would be team mates ever again. Nice gesture - false hopes - false smiles. Some interviews are just what do you think of its so far = rubbish and are tin pot 30 minutes and hopeless. Is that the way they select someone to work for them for the next eon of years on 30 mins question and answer, technical questions and an on line application form, I think not. Waste of money advertising and recruiting. Well I don’t want to work at what resemble Hitler’s bunker anyway. Hundreds of lemmings surrounded by metal filing cabinets no natural light, just oceans of fluorescents, how depressing being a mushroom there. WW111 could kick off but they would not have a clue.
Oh and btw, they have insufficient car park space for a job that is essential car user. They only have 80% capacity. So the barrier only lets you in to park 4 days out of 5. On the 5th day you either work from home or stay out all day, but you don’t come into the office.
Whacky Racers heehehehehehehehhehehehehe
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Bright Eyes
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath
Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath
Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
I drove all day ....to get to you
I drove 400 miles round trip to Dorchester today for an interview. The journey took almost 8 hours, the interview lasted two and a half hours, after I had to perform a ten minute power point presentation. I had previously completed the application form of course and an on line Psychometric test. I thought the interview went well. I was honest, what you see is what you get with me. They smiled and looked at me when we shook hands and said our goodbyes. It’s when they don’t look you in the eye at the end that you know they are not interested. I also think we shared common views which is refreshing. Anyway wait and see, no news will be bad news.
I also have observations to make, some more startling than others, and the startling ones I start to write about here for a start, that is startling in itself I guess, anyway enough starting about the bush , get on with it, ok…….
Dorset, charming county, birth place of the Trade Union movement, the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Dorchester is quaint, surrounded by small villages like Piddle Hinton, Piddletrentthistle and Puddletown as well as Tolpuddle of course, and it occurred to me as I drove along the A35 passed these road signs, that there were bound to be puddles with all this piddling going on !!
Final foot note from our motoring correspondent: Are BMW drivers the worse drivers on the road?? I have a 3 litre V6 Jaguar that if I wanted to could see anything other than Jason Button off the road. The number of times today BMWs were in my rear view mirror forcing there way and guzzling expensive fuel. Now I am no slow coach. I have done taxi driving, got numerous people to airports against the clock, never failed to get people there in no time at all, wooosh it was all a blur. BUT these bad man’s wheels are pathetic, and have no concept of looking ahead driving, and yes it is a sweeping generalisation, but it was too numerous today not to tar the whole BMW range with the same chequered flag. Tomorrow I am going to Halfords to get a rear gunner fitted, dadadadadadada ………………………
I also have observations to make, some more startling than others, and the startling ones I start to write about here for a start, that is startling in itself I guess, anyway enough starting about the bush , get on with it, ok…….
Dorset, charming county, birth place of the Trade Union movement, the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Dorchester is quaint, surrounded by small villages like Piddle Hinton, Piddletrentthistle and Puddletown as well as Tolpuddle of course, and it occurred to me as I drove along the A35 passed these road signs, that there were bound to be puddles with all this piddling going on !!
Final foot note from our motoring correspondent: Are BMW drivers the worse drivers on the road?? I have a 3 litre V6 Jaguar that if I wanted to could see anything other than Jason Button off the road. The number of times today BMWs were in my rear view mirror forcing there way and guzzling expensive fuel. Now I am no slow coach. I have done taxi driving, got numerous people to airports against the clock, never failed to get people there in no time at all, wooosh it was all a blur. BUT these bad man’s wheels are pathetic, and have no concept of looking ahead driving, and yes it is a sweeping generalisation, but it was too numerous today not to tar the whole BMW range with the same chequered flag. Tomorrow I am going to Halfords to get a rear gunner fitted, dadadadadadada ………………………
Sunday, 5 July 2009
I've Been driving in my car, it is just a Jaguar
I've been driving in my car, it is just a Jaguar, Madness I now, but many of my thoughts come from behind a van or lorry steering wheel as I drive to survive.... wheels keep rolling, rolling down the road,them Cherokees are after me flaming spears burn my ears but I'm singing a happy song..........
The other day..............well if you are sitting comfortably......... I remembered the research trip whilst Watchdog was off air. I was in a hire XR31, it got me to Cologne in 4 hours including the ferry, woosh. Of course all the former Messerschmitt pilots were now behind a Mercedes steering wheel and more importantly behind ein Englander number plate, donna und blitzen, a new dog fight on the autobahns, and guess who won again....he he ha ha, bandits at 12 o clock tally ho , roger wilco, dadadadadadada.
I drove to Berncastle, where the Romans had started the wine industry on the banks of the Rhine. Now everyone knew, Germany exported more wine than it could grow grapes for. Everyone knew that common market subsidies were given to Germany for this. Everybody knew that the excess came over the Alps on a choo choo train from Cinzano Bianco who had too much of the dreggs to cope with. Everbody knew that the Germans did not drink this Liebfraumilch which was export only to Japan, USA and Britain, where our pallates were less educated. Do you think I could get anybody to go public on this. Wrong, Donna und Blitzen, sprekenzy nine.
And now for something completely different and a track from 1548MW Golden Oldies on the van radio............
I met her in a club
down in old Soho
where you drink champagne
and it tastes just
like cherry cola
C-O-L-A cola
She walked up to me
and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name
and in a dark brown voice
she said Lola
L-O-L-A Lola
la la la la Lola
Well I'm not the world's
most physical guy
but when she squeezed me tight
she nearly broke my spine
oh my Lola
la la la la Lola
Well I'm not dumb
but I can't understand
why she walked like a woman
and talked like a man
oh my Lola
la la la la Lola
la la la la Lola
Well we drank champagne
and danced all night
under electric candle light
she picked me up and
sat me on her knee
and said "Dear boy
won't you come home with me?"
Well I'm not the world's
most passionate guy
but when I looked in her eyes
I almost fell for my
Lola la la la la Lola
la la la la Lola
Lola la la la la Lola
la la la la Lola
I pushed her away
I walked to the door
Well I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
then I looked at her
and she at me
Well that's the way
that I want it to stay
and I always want it
to be that wayfor my Lola
la la la la Lola
Girls will be boys
and boys will be girls
it's a mixed up
muddled up
shook up world
except for Lola
la la la la Lola
Well I left home just
a week before
and I'd never ever kissed
a woman before
but Lola smiled and
took me by the hand
and said "Dear boy
I'm gonna make you a man"
Well I'm not the world's
most masculine man
but I know what I am
and I'm glad I'm a man
and so is Lola
la la la la lola
la la la la Lola
Lola la la la la Lola
la la la la Lola
The Kinks one of my favourites, and you remember Bob Sweet course you do, one of the 4 prefects that run my school at break time, we the 4 Muskateers. Well we went at 17, it was a very good year, to a pub in cetral London, and Bob got off with this bird. Now Bob always removed his glasses in vanity, even driving up to Kilburn Grammar school for girls where Ken's child hood sweet heart was waiting with her pals on the lunch time school wall. Bob was blind as a bat without his glasses and as he grinned and squinted, we co pilots had to guide him through his final approach. In fact once he reversed the sit up and beg Ford Popular, into a tree, because he was too distracted by the mini skirted girl in the front seat to heed my warning exclamations, crunch!!
Anyway, back to the original plot, where were we, oh yes, in the pub, with a glass or seven. So Bob minus glasses is led round the back alley way by his "pull" and then he comes back 5 minutes later "come on lets drink up and scarper" "why" "that f...g bird , I put my hand up her skirt, and grabbed her balls, b....d shes a f...g bloke!!!!" Donna und Blitzen, Lol und Blitzen, exit stage left varoooom.
When I was 17 it was a very good year, it was a year of experience and life was not as it seemed, oh how people dreamed, when I was 17.
The plot thickens next time, stay tuned to this channel, where the names of the innocent have not been changed to protect the guilty !!!
The other day..............well if you are sitting comfortably......... I remembered the research trip whilst Watchdog was off air. I was in a hire XR31, it got me to Cologne in 4 hours including the ferry, woosh. Of course all the former Messerschmitt pilots were now behind a Mercedes steering wheel and more importantly behind ein Englander number plate, donna und blitzen, a new dog fight on the autobahns, and guess who won again....he he ha ha, bandits at 12 o clock tally ho , roger wilco, dadadadadadada.
I drove to Berncastle, where the Romans had started the wine industry on the banks of the Rhine. Now everyone knew, Germany exported more wine than it could grow grapes for. Everyone knew that common market subsidies were given to Germany for this. Everybody knew that the excess came over the Alps on a choo choo train from Cinzano Bianco who had too much of the dreggs to cope with. Everbody knew that the Germans did not drink this Liebfraumilch which was export only to Japan, USA and Britain, where our pallates were less educated. Do you think I could get anybody to go public on this. Wrong, Donna und Blitzen, sprekenzy nine.
And now for something completely different and a track from 1548MW Golden Oldies on the van radio............
I met her in a club
down in old Soho
where you drink champagne
and it tastes just
like cherry cola
C-O-L-A cola
She walked up to me
and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name
and in a dark brown voice
she said Lola
L-O-L-A Lola
la la la la Lola
Well I'm not the world's
most physical guy
but when she squeezed me tight
she nearly broke my spine
oh my Lola
la la la la Lola
Well I'm not dumb
but I can't understand
why she walked like a woman
and talked like a man
oh my Lola
la la la la Lola
la la la la Lola
Well we drank champagne
and danced all night
under electric candle light
she picked me up and
sat me on her knee
and said "Dear boy
won't you come home with me?"
Well I'm not the world's
most passionate guy
but when I looked in her eyes
I almost fell for my
Lola la la la la Lola
la la la la Lola
Lola la la la la Lola
la la la la Lola
I pushed her away
I walked to the door
Well I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
then I looked at her
and she at me
Well that's the way
that I want it to stay
and I always want it
to be that wayfor my Lola
la la la la Lola
Girls will be boys
and boys will be girls
it's a mixed up
muddled up
shook up world
except for Lola
la la la la Lola
Well I left home just
a week before
and I'd never ever kissed
a woman before
but Lola smiled and
took me by the hand
and said "Dear boy
I'm gonna make you a man"
Well I'm not the world's
most masculine man
but I know what I am
and I'm glad I'm a man
and so is Lola
la la la la lola
la la la la Lola
Lola la la la la Lola
la la la la Lola
The Kinks one of my favourites, and you remember Bob Sweet course you do, one of the 4 prefects that run my school at break time, we the 4 Muskateers. Well we went at 17, it was a very good year, to a pub in cetral London, and Bob got off with this bird. Now Bob always removed his glasses in vanity, even driving up to Kilburn Grammar school for girls where Ken's child hood sweet heart was waiting with her pals on the lunch time school wall. Bob was blind as a bat without his glasses and as he grinned and squinted, we co pilots had to guide him through his final approach. In fact once he reversed the sit up and beg Ford Popular, into a tree, because he was too distracted by the mini skirted girl in the front seat to heed my warning exclamations, crunch!!
Anyway, back to the original plot, where were we, oh yes, in the pub, with a glass or seven. So Bob minus glasses is led round the back alley way by his "pull" and then he comes back 5 minutes later "come on lets drink up and scarper" "why" "that f...g bird , I put my hand up her skirt, and grabbed her balls, b....d shes a f...g bloke!!!!" Donna und Blitzen, Lol und Blitzen, exit stage left varoooom.
When I was 17 it was a very good year, it was a year of experience and life was not as it seemed, oh how people dreamed, when I was 17.
The plot thickens next time, stay tuned to this channel, where the names of the innocent have not been changed to protect the guilty !!!
Thursday, 2 July 2009
The Case of the Blackpool Shed
The Case of Blackpool Garden Shed
Going to all these interviews and recounting the past, cases like when the Nuns and Monks were double booked into the same hotel accommodation, yes you read that right. I always try to recount something new, else I bore myself listening to the same old song, with a different meaning since I was gone.
The other day, I forget which interview it was, 3 faces listening as they do, so I told them about the time I went to Blackpool in the late 70’s. I had a warrant, because in Britain’s premier shopping street oxford street they were selling fake Channel, Charlie and Ives St Laurent perfume. Made in London, Paris, New York, it actually was bottled in a council house via a yellow plastic funnel in Blackpool. The packaging was good, the mastermind, who also owned the plush Blackpool Country Tennis Club, had paid a proper printers in nearby Morecombe to create the almost exact packaging.
So I turned up from London. I rendezvoused with an Officer from Wrexham, who had also come across the product. Blackpool Trading Standards showed no interest other than making me a cup of tea and showing me the addresses on a map.
So when I descended on matey at the council house, he refused any co operation. I saw the garden shed, asked him what was in it and for the key. He said he had no key and did not know what was in it. So I kicked the door in and blimey,it started swaying, the whole shed, and creeking, and then in a puff of dust the walls collapsed like a house of cards, bham. not only was it empty but is was not nailed together properly and collapsed roof and all, empty absolutely empty just dust………ooopppsss.
“Don’t wreck the whole place” Matey shouts out, “It’s all in the cellar”. And lo and behold the bottling plant was their in the Cellar, so me and Mr Wrexham loaded all into my car back to London for the court case. Next time I should take a dog to scent the scent I guess, even fake not so smelly, scent.
Going to all these interviews and recounting the past, cases like when the Nuns and Monks were double booked into the same hotel accommodation, yes you read that right. I always try to recount something new, else I bore myself listening to the same old song, with a different meaning since I was gone.
The other day, I forget which interview it was, 3 faces listening as they do, so I told them about the time I went to Blackpool in the late 70’s. I had a warrant, because in Britain’s premier shopping street oxford street they were selling fake Channel, Charlie and Ives St Laurent perfume. Made in London, Paris, New York, it actually was bottled in a council house via a yellow plastic funnel in Blackpool. The packaging was good, the mastermind, who also owned the plush Blackpool Country Tennis Club, had paid a proper printers in nearby Morecombe to create the almost exact packaging.
So I turned up from London. I rendezvoused with an Officer from Wrexham, who had also come across the product. Blackpool Trading Standards showed no interest other than making me a cup of tea and showing me the addresses on a map.
So when I descended on matey at the council house, he refused any co operation. I saw the garden shed, asked him what was in it and for the key. He said he had no key and did not know what was in it. So I kicked the door in and blimey,it started swaying, the whole shed, and creeking, and then in a puff of dust the walls collapsed like a house of cards, bham. not only was it empty but is was not nailed together properly and collapsed roof and all, empty absolutely empty just dust………ooopppsss.
“Don’t wreck the whole place” Matey shouts out, “It’s all in the cellar”. And lo and behold the bottling plant was their in the Cellar, so me and Mr Wrexham loaded all into my car back to London for the court case. Next time I should take a dog to scent the scent I guess, even fake not so smelly, scent.
Amazing Adventures
Amazing Adventures: Episode 87
King.Com is the largest casual gaming site that I frequent escaping reality into the cyber world of virtual reality. Here I play with opponents and friends that I have made from around the www globe.
Some of the games and some of the interaction with players are the addiction, and we are all escaping from life as we know it to find solace and enjoyment in games people play, like scrabble, card games, ball games, even pinball wizard and ten pin bowling. It is amazing what computers can do.
There is a game called Amazing Adventures, and in fact it should be called I Spy, it is nothing like Indiana Jones ( I got a hat like that). I do think the Computer Games marketing sections often have a power surge of excess binary code .
However Amazing Adventures do prompt me into remembering my amazing adventures and yes I have had a few. There was the time when Helen swam out to rescue Ian my eldest , drifting out with the football, real Baywatch style. There was the time when Graeme my youngest at 9 froze at the breakfast table and started turning blue, fortunately my kiss of life eventually brought him round, and what did the doctors say “good job you were there”. Now he is 6’4”, but that was the worse moment of my life, he was dead for a few seconds.
King’s games take you to Luxor (been there Karnak Temple), the Pyramids (been there Galloped around them and the Japanese Nikon camera tourists – Hadush, Lawrence of Arabia- huh!).
I have not survived the Amazon, because I have not got that far, I have driven from Vegas to the Grand Canyon in an open top Mustang, thinking I would see John Wayne, Custer’s 7th Cavalry and Sitting Bull’s Sioux Nation, any minute on the horizon. I did later dance the eagle dance with the Navajo. Another claim to fame was seeing Whacko Jacko looking at dolls in a toy store in Vegas in the 90's. The "we love you Michael" crowd was held back, he was dressed in the heat in black coat, black hat, sunglasses and a scarf. His kids wore butterfly nets over their heads and feathered masks over their faces. He looked at the dolls for almost an hour, I could see him through the glass windows, bizarre.
Arnie was much better, more normal, his cigar in this Santa Monica restaurant was huge about 12 inches, wish I had one that big. Interesting, as California had led the way about no smoking. But I guess the would be Governor was allowed to break the law. Arnold Schwarzenegger then sitting at the next table, only 5'8" without the Alan Ladd platform shoes, so I towered above him and so did his friend a big fat lady who greeted him with an embrace that squeezed the air out of his lungs and almost ejected that huge Cuban smoking device. Literally big fat mamma succedded in raising him off his feet, like no other action enemy had done before on the screen. Conan the Barbarian, one of my favourite films, was now slotted into a reality check, as the cheque for our meal arrived. True one of his arms equalled both of mine put together, but he was as you see him, grin and laugh a minute, hahaha yeah.
I have flown a 1941 Tiger Moth bi plane at Duxford Imperial War Museum, jocks away, tally ho Roger Wilco, stop calling me Roger, Wilco..
I have also fed the elephants who get extremely randy with bananas , their trunks and their noses at the end of their trunks. Really Paris Hilton is amateur by comparison. This was in Thailand of course where Health and Safety has not gone mad and spoilt it for every one, and after riding one for about an hour, and not like at the zoo just up and down, no through the forest with Mowgli at the helm or head. Mind you even the baby elephant weighed 2 tons and could push me around like no one has pushed me around before.
Also in Thailand, I visited a little fishing village and was escorted like Livingstone to the chief’s wooden hut on stilts, with one red carpet in the middle of the solitary room. I wanted one of his men to take me in the low long boats they use to go round the Islands featured in the James Bond movie. Such friendly people, that was a real adventure, and doing what other tourists would never do, I also gave them more ££ than they asked for, it was that exhilarating.
New York, Paris, London, Venice, Rome and the rest, knocked over by the crashing Pacific waves, found my way to San Jose Dionne Warwick style, ah wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo, wo. I didn’t wear flowers in my hair in San Fransisco, but I did have flowers on my scooter in the streets of London in the Hippie Mod ‘60s.
More tales when you are sitting comfortably next time.
King.Com is the largest casual gaming site that I frequent escaping reality into the cyber world of virtual reality. Here I play with opponents and friends that I have made from around the www globe.
Some of the games and some of the interaction with players are the addiction, and we are all escaping from life as we know it to find solace and enjoyment in games people play, like scrabble, card games, ball games, even pinball wizard and ten pin bowling. It is amazing what computers can do.
There is a game called Amazing Adventures, and in fact it should be called I Spy, it is nothing like Indiana Jones ( I got a hat like that). I do think the Computer Games marketing sections often have a power surge of excess binary code .
However Amazing Adventures do prompt me into remembering my amazing adventures and yes I have had a few. There was the time when Helen swam out to rescue Ian my eldest , drifting out with the football, real Baywatch style. There was the time when Graeme my youngest at 9 froze at the breakfast table and started turning blue, fortunately my kiss of life eventually brought him round, and what did the doctors say “good job you were there”. Now he is 6’4”, but that was the worse moment of my life, he was dead for a few seconds.
King’s games take you to Luxor (been there Karnak Temple), the Pyramids (been there Galloped around them and the Japanese Nikon camera tourists – Hadush, Lawrence of Arabia- huh!).
I have not survived the Amazon, because I have not got that far, I have driven from Vegas to the Grand Canyon in an open top Mustang, thinking I would see John Wayne, Custer’s 7th Cavalry and Sitting Bull’s Sioux Nation, any minute on the horizon. I did later dance the eagle dance with the Navajo. Another claim to fame was seeing Whacko Jacko looking at dolls in a toy store in Vegas in the 90's. The "we love you Michael" crowd was held back, he was dressed in the heat in black coat, black hat, sunglasses and a scarf. His kids wore butterfly nets over their heads and feathered masks over their faces. He looked at the dolls for almost an hour, I could see him through the glass windows, bizarre.
Arnie was much better, more normal, his cigar in this Santa Monica restaurant was huge about 12 inches, wish I had one that big. Interesting, as California had led the way about no smoking. But I guess the would be Governor was allowed to break the law. Arnold Schwarzenegger then sitting at the next table, only 5'8" without the Alan Ladd platform shoes, so I towered above him and so did his friend a big fat lady who greeted him with an embrace that squeezed the air out of his lungs and almost ejected that huge Cuban smoking device. Literally big fat mamma succedded in raising him off his feet, like no other action enemy had done before on the screen. Conan the Barbarian, one of my favourite films, was now slotted into a reality check, as the cheque for our meal arrived. True one of his arms equalled both of mine put together, but he was as you see him, grin and laugh a minute, hahaha yeah.
I have flown a 1941 Tiger Moth bi plane at Duxford Imperial War Museum, jocks away, tally ho Roger Wilco, stop calling me Roger, Wilco..
I have also fed the elephants who get extremely randy with bananas , their trunks and their noses at the end of their trunks. Really Paris Hilton is amateur by comparison. This was in Thailand of course where Health and Safety has not gone mad and spoilt it for every one, and after riding one for about an hour, and not like at the zoo just up and down, no through the forest with Mowgli at the helm or head. Mind you even the baby elephant weighed 2 tons and could push me around like no one has pushed me around before.
Also in Thailand, I visited a little fishing village and was escorted like Livingstone to the chief’s wooden hut on stilts, with one red carpet in the middle of the solitary room. I wanted one of his men to take me in the low long boats they use to go round the Islands featured in the James Bond movie. Such friendly people, that was a real adventure, and doing what other tourists would never do, I also gave them more ££ than they asked for, it was that exhilarating.
New York, Paris, London, Venice, Rome and the rest, knocked over by the crashing Pacific waves, found my way to San Jose Dionne Warwick style, ah wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo wo, wo. I didn’t wear flowers in my hair in San Fransisco, but I did have flowers on my scooter in the streets of London in the Hippie Mod ‘60s.
More tales when you are sitting comfortably next time.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Ken & Gerry's Its a Celebration
We’re gonna party, a party tonight
As I sit here in my study the morning after, the sun is out, it’s 8am, Sunday 14th June 2009 , it’s already warm and a red kite (bird of prey with long wing span and distinctive calling sound) has just flown by my window.
And here is the News last night I went to a party hosted by Mr and Mrs New.
Last night I went to Ken & Gerry’s party in Sheffield a hundred miles north of here.
Ken is my oldest friend from Grammar School days in Willesden North West London. Funny we first met on the football games session when I was a central defender and he was a centre forward and we clashed, the teacher breaking us up. In the 6th year we became friends. Today, to me he looks no different to those days, just greying hair, but still has that infectious ear to ear grin. Yesteryear when we were Prefects in the 6th Form, we, with Bob Sweet and Clive Willy almost ran that school. All the lads were shoved out in the rain, but the pretty girls could stay in of course at break time. There was no discipline problems, any boy out of order just got looked at, and if necessary picked up by the shirt and tie and banged against the nearest wall. Instant justice.
Also there last night was Keith and Kevin, plus their wives, more Ken’s friends than mine, but again from school days, and we did go out every Saturday night for months to a country pub in Harefield, to consume 8 pints of beer. I actually asked last night why we did that and why the Cross Keys, the answer was apparently it was my idea in the 1st place, but I don’t subscribe to that hypophosis. Kathy was there again with her husband, she is friends with Kevin’s wife Chris, and she instantly recognised me from what must be 5 years ago, when she was outrageously flirting with me at a music venue in Camden, where Ken’s sons were performing.
The highlight last night were these guys:
The Soul Brothers dressed as the Blues Brothers, an 8 piece band, they really got the place rocking, I have not danced so much in a long time. In fact there have only been 2 ex girlfriends, Hazel (Irish) and Gina (Pilipino) who could out dance me stamina and style. But, last night I was on my Jack Jones, and most of the dancing to their rhythm was solo bopping. I did not stay overnight either like the rest of them, for the bbq today. So I drove back and got to my house, which is not a home, at 02.30 hrs.
Although this band were brilliant, I did feel flat, being on my own. Although Kathy wanted to dance with me and we did to the Mavericks record “Dance the Night Away” and a couple of slow records…….. when the husband is cramping your style, and everyone else was in couples, much as I wanted to dance the night away with Kathy I could not.
It was just like when my youngest son got married in Cambridge 3 years back, then it was even more poignant. Though on that occasion my new daughter in law’s sister danced the night away with me, but her husband was hovering too.
I also found it hard to bid farewell, again because I am like a spare piece of anatomy at a wedding, and keep a brave face. Highs and lows, and when we reminisced why is it me with the reputation? “Oh Allan on that scooter in the Mods and Rockers late 60’s he was mad, Allan was always a trouble maker”. Even Gerry said 42 years after the event, “you were a bad influence on Ken, I turned up at the Oldfield with my friends on a hen night and Ken was there with you dancing with the girls, and he should not have been there”………….oooopppps……….maybe that is why she has often given me the cold shoulder and I was not invited to their wedding. Kevin was Ken’s best man and also mine. I have never been best man, well in some people’s eyes, not mine.
As I sit here in my study the morning after, the sun is out, it’s 8am, Sunday 14th June 2009 , it’s already warm and a red kite (bird of prey with long wing span and distinctive calling sound) has just flown by my window.
And here is the News last night I went to a party hosted by Mr and Mrs New.
Last night I went to Ken & Gerry’s party in Sheffield a hundred miles north of here.
Ken is my oldest friend from Grammar School days in Willesden North West London. Funny we first met on the football games session when I was a central defender and he was a centre forward and we clashed, the teacher breaking us up. In the 6th year we became friends. Today, to me he looks no different to those days, just greying hair, but still has that infectious ear to ear grin. Yesteryear when we were Prefects in the 6th Form, we, with Bob Sweet and Clive Willy almost ran that school. All the lads were shoved out in the rain, but the pretty girls could stay in of course at break time. There was no discipline problems, any boy out of order just got looked at, and if necessary picked up by the shirt and tie and banged against the nearest wall. Instant justice.
Also there last night was Keith and Kevin, plus their wives, more Ken’s friends than mine, but again from school days, and we did go out every Saturday night for months to a country pub in Harefield, to consume 8 pints of beer. I actually asked last night why we did that and why the Cross Keys, the answer was apparently it was my idea in the 1st place, but I don’t subscribe to that hypophosis. Kathy was there again with her husband, she is friends with Kevin’s wife Chris, and she instantly recognised me from what must be 5 years ago, when she was outrageously flirting with me at a music venue in Camden, where Ken’s sons were performing.
The highlight last night were these guys:
The Soul Brothers dressed as the Blues Brothers, an 8 piece band, they really got the place rocking, I have not danced so much in a long time. In fact there have only been 2 ex girlfriends, Hazel (Irish) and Gina (Pilipino) who could out dance me stamina and style. But, last night I was on my Jack Jones, and most of the dancing to their rhythm was solo bopping. I did not stay overnight either like the rest of them, for the bbq today. So I drove back and got to my house, which is not a home, at 02.30 hrs.
Although this band were brilliant, I did feel flat, being on my own. Although Kathy wanted to dance with me and we did to the Mavericks record “Dance the Night Away” and a couple of slow records…….. when the husband is cramping your style, and everyone else was in couples, much as I wanted to dance the night away with Kathy I could not.
It was just like when my youngest son got married in Cambridge 3 years back, then it was even more poignant. Though on that occasion my new daughter in law’s sister danced the night away with me, but her husband was hovering too.
I also found it hard to bid farewell, again because I am like a spare piece of anatomy at a wedding, and keep a brave face. Highs and lows, and when we reminisced why is it me with the reputation? “Oh Allan on that scooter in the Mods and Rockers late 60’s he was mad, Allan was always a trouble maker”. Even Gerry said 42 years after the event, “you were a bad influence on Ken, I turned up at the Oldfield with my friends on a hen night and Ken was there with you dancing with the girls, and he should not have been there”………….oooopppps……….maybe that is why she has often given me the cold shoulder and I was not invited to their wedding. Kevin was Ken’s best man and also mine. I have never been best man, well in some people’s eyes, not mine.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Life as we know it..........the computer age
LIFE BEFORE THE INTERNET ----------------------------------
Memory was something you lost with age. An application was for employment. A program was a tv show. A curser used profanity.
A keyboard was a piano! A web was a spider's home. A virus was the flu! A CD was a bank account.
A hard drive was a long trip on the road. A mouse was a rodent that ate cheese. A mouse mat was where a mouse lived and wiped his feet. And if you had a 3 1/2 inch floppy ...you just hoped nobody found out!
Fast food was fish and chips, computers occupied a building, phones were used to talk on, petrol was 6/8d a gallon, a pint of beer was 1/10d. the internet linked nuclear missile silos…….. those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end xxx
Memory was something you lost with age. An application was for employment. A program was a tv show. A curser used profanity.
A keyboard was a piano! A web was a spider's home. A virus was the flu! A CD was a bank account.
A hard drive was a long trip on the road. A mouse was a rodent that ate cheese. A mouse mat was where a mouse lived and wiped his feet. And if you had a 3 1/2 inch floppy ...you just hoped nobody found out!
Fast food was fish and chips, computers occupied a building, phones were used to talk on, petrol was 6/8d a gallon, a pint of beer was 1/10d. the internet linked nuclear missile silos…….. those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end xxx
Monday, 8 June 2009
Dear Mr Postman look and see, if there's, a leter a letter for me
Life as We Know it, a job opportunity from Heaven
I came home from a job interview in Oxford, to find a letter from the postman, for another interview, and I had to read it 3 times, because I swear I never applied for this job!!!
Now the job in Oxford that I was qualified for, even though they wanted an unqualified officer, and it was a job, the duties of which I had done time and time again…..well I did not get that job. So rather than spiffing, more like spitting .
At first I thought I could not possibly go for this 2nd interview in 2 weeks……..wooooooooo. As I said I had no recollection of applying, never heard of the company and the interview was in Her Majesty’s Pleasure yes a local prison (just visiting!!). Then I thought well this might be a job from the hand of god, like Maradonna’s hand ball goal in the World Cup against Peter Shilton, except my postman was the divine messenger.
I even asked for the person specification and the job advert, pretending I could not find it on their web site, when I emailed them my interview attendance confirmation. Still I cant remember applying, it’s like my name and address has been jumbled up with someone else’s.
Anyway the job is about rehabilitation of offenders. Hey I can’t get a job, so the job to go for is to try to get offenders not to re offend and get them a job. Very worthy actually. Now I have convinced myself to go for it, even though I don’t have an Information Advice & Guidance qualification, but I have got life’s years of experience and common sense. We will see.
However, though I can’t remember the cause for this chapter it did cause the thought process about how a lot of criminals are very clever, if only they devoted their brains to moral and legal practices. There are many I have come across, importing fake mobile phones, creating fake artwork, logistics , distribution, manufacture of fake designer clothing, overseas business trips, contacts. They were improper entrepreneurs.
For instance in the good old late 70’s when I was in Westminster, I was chasing a gang for 6 months. In that scenario you do try to get inside their minds in order to outwit them and therefore catch them. Their modus operandi was to go North twice a week to car auctions, buy a number of cheap unroadworthy second hand cars. Then they would give them a shampoo and set and sell them through newspaper advertisements as private individuals from varying addresses. They did not pay for the advertising and it seemed they were always on the move , week by week. New phone numbers, new addresses and the Evening Standard married up advertisements for flats to let with the cars to sell. The gang also had links with an estate agent , so the flat would be given the once over as well as the cars for sale outside in the street. None of the advertising was paid for. Also the gang leader used 10 different names and 10 different bank accounts.
Now, really, I quietly admired this guy. How on earth did he remember who he was in certain situations and with certain people, and what happened if the permutation changed and he was faced with a group who knew him by different names, the mind boggles. But, his mind did not, and for 6 months I was chasing shadows. Soon as I found out where he was, he and the gang had just exited stage left.
The mistake he made, and they all make mistakes, is he started using stolen MOT’s for the dangerous unroadworthy cars. One young couple with a child actually drove home after buying the car. As they rounded the North Circular Road a front wheel came off as they were driving, no exaggeration. So he had to use stolen MOTs, no expense was spared in selling the “excellent condition” jalopies.
Now I got Notting Hill CID interested and we hit a few past addresses. We found a rubber stamp that led us to a lock up garage workshop in Lots Road Chelsea, early in a dawn raid. This Detective Sergeant and I scaled the blue metal chained gates, and jumped over, and in true Tom & Jerry cartoon style, tried in vain to tread in mid air back up again as 2 Dobermans crept up below our airborne feet with their snarling jaws open. Ooooppps, clambering back up, the radio did not work in the Q car, so our intrepid plain clothes police officers had to wait at the end of the road to flag down a passing police car. No mobile phones in those days. Then Crocodile Dundee’s version of the Metropolitan Dog Handling Team turned up grinning with their lassoes and, guess what, the dog problem was no more.
Surprise surprise when the workers turned up , not to get the car shampoo and buckets out, but instead to be handcuffed and carted off in the black maria. So after 6 months in 72 hours the gang was being apprehended. One address remained in Maida Vale. The Territorial Support Group Police ( official name for Neanderthal officers) covered the back alleyway. The front door, no one answered and the police could not force it open. So I said I would drop kick it, and in true kung fu tradition I sailed horizontal straight through the door which remained locked with my legs in the house and my head, arms and torso in the street,,,,,,,,,,,derrrr. I get pulled out of splintered remnants of a black Victorian Front Door. Then the door was kicked off the lock and there was a chain. I go next door for a hack saw, we saw through the chain. Now as you can imagine 7am and all this door carpentry took quite a while and was not exactly quiet. The door finally bangs open and down the stairs comes Paul Walsh the gang leader in his dressing gown, asking “who is it”, to which a burly Police Sergeant’s reply was, “who is it” who the f***g hell you think it is, your nicked”
I came home from a job interview in Oxford, to find a letter from the postman, for another interview, and I had to read it 3 times, because I swear I never applied for this job!!!
Now the job in Oxford that I was qualified for, even though they wanted an unqualified officer, and it was a job, the duties of which I had done time and time again…..well I did not get that job. So rather than spiffing, more like spitting .
At first I thought I could not possibly go for this 2nd interview in 2 weeks……..wooooooooo. As I said I had no recollection of applying, never heard of the company and the interview was in Her Majesty’s Pleasure yes a local prison (just visiting!!). Then I thought well this might be a job from the hand of god, like Maradonna’s hand ball goal in the World Cup against Peter Shilton, except my postman was the divine messenger.
I even asked for the person specification and the job advert, pretending I could not find it on their web site, when I emailed them my interview attendance confirmation. Still I cant remember applying, it’s like my name and address has been jumbled up with someone else’s.
Anyway the job is about rehabilitation of offenders. Hey I can’t get a job, so the job to go for is to try to get offenders not to re offend and get them a job. Very worthy actually. Now I have convinced myself to go for it, even though I don’t have an Information Advice & Guidance qualification, but I have got life’s years of experience and common sense. We will see.
However, though I can’t remember the cause for this chapter it did cause the thought process about how a lot of criminals are very clever, if only they devoted their brains to moral and legal practices. There are many I have come across, importing fake mobile phones, creating fake artwork, logistics , distribution, manufacture of fake designer clothing, overseas business trips, contacts. They were improper entrepreneurs.
For instance in the good old late 70’s when I was in Westminster, I was chasing a gang for 6 months. In that scenario you do try to get inside their minds in order to outwit them and therefore catch them. Their modus operandi was to go North twice a week to car auctions, buy a number of cheap unroadworthy second hand cars. Then they would give them a shampoo and set and sell them through newspaper advertisements as private individuals from varying addresses. They did not pay for the advertising and it seemed they were always on the move , week by week. New phone numbers, new addresses and the Evening Standard married up advertisements for flats to let with the cars to sell. The gang also had links with an estate agent , so the flat would be given the once over as well as the cars for sale outside in the street. None of the advertising was paid for. Also the gang leader used 10 different names and 10 different bank accounts.
Now, really, I quietly admired this guy. How on earth did he remember who he was in certain situations and with certain people, and what happened if the permutation changed and he was faced with a group who knew him by different names, the mind boggles. But, his mind did not, and for 6 months I was chasing shadows. Soon as I found out where he was, he and the gang had just exited stage left.
The mistake he made, and they all make mistakes, is he started using stolen MOT’s for the dangerous unroadworthy cars. One young couple with a child actually drove home after buying the car. As they rounded the North Circular Road a front wheel came off as they were driving, no exaggeration. So he had to use stolen MOTs, no expense was spared in selling the “excellent condition” jalopies.
Now I got Notting Hill CID interested and we hit a few past addresses. We found a rubber stamp that led us to a lock up garage workshop in Lots Road Chelsea, early in a dawn raid. This Detective Sergeant and I scaled the blue metal chained gates, and jumped over, and in true Tom & Jerry cartoon style, tried in vain to tread in mid air back up again as 2 Dobermans crept up below our airborne feet with their snarling jaws open. Ooooppps, clambering back up, the radio did not work in the Q car, so our intrepid plain clothes police officers had to wait at the end of the road to flag down a passing police car. No mobile phones in those days. Then Crocodile Dundee’s version of the Metropolitan Dog Handling Team turned up grinning with their lassoes and, guess what, the dog problem was no more.
Surprise surprise when the workers turned up , not to get the car shampoo and buckets out, but instead to be handcuffed and carted off in the black maria. So after 6 months in 72 hours the gang was being apprehended. One address remained in Maida Vale. The Territorial Support Group Police ( official name for Neanderthal officers) covered the back alleyway. The front door, no one answered and the police could not force it open. So I said I would drop kick it, and in true kung fu tradition I sailed horizontal straight through the door which remained locked with my legs in the house and my head, arms and torso in the street,,,,,,,,,,,derrrr. I get pulled out of splintered remnants of a black Victorian Front Door. Then the door was kicked off the lock and there was a chain. I go next door for a hack saw, we saw through the chain. Now as you can imagine 7am and all this door carpentry took quite a while and was not exactly quiet. The door finally bangs open and down the stairs comes Paul Walsh the gang leader in his dressing gown, asking “who is it”, to which a burly Police Sergeant’s reply was, “who is it” who the f***g hell you think it is, your nicked”
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Now for something not so completely different . Another look at life from the outside in. More Madness this time closer to home in the recent past.
Have you ever lived with someone that was not normal. I am no angel, but I live by logic and by common sense, well I try, but not everyone is the same.
I remember Bill Barr. He was an Inspector at Brent, and we went to his nice big house in Wembley one sunny day in the 70’s. All the windows were open as you would expect, and he was rushing down the driveway, then he shouted at his mother in law who was house sitting. The central heating was on , yes it was a sunny summer’s day. He told me that she put so much electricity on one day, the tar insulation on the underground main cables to the meter was melting.
Now I have known loopy Lou like that. How come a prospective live in partner is on her best behaviour, then resorts to selfish madness after a year, when you have moved in together. Open the windows in the winter with the heating on, close the windows and doors in the summer, and switch on electronic air fresheners, instead of allowing natural fresh air in through the windows. Energy conservation, what is that, a £400 utility bill to boot. Mind you recycling was not her pet subject either, food always came out of a packet and her way was to landfill all the rubbish, as well as waste energy resources and warm up the whole planet. What a wanker. BTW apart from watching murders on TV Ms Gordina Blue loves to watch cooking programmes...................WHY...............when it obviously comes in packets and tins !!!!!
Oh one more thing, the bathroom window which opened sideways, she would keep that open when the house was vacant, but at least she did not put a sign out saying “dear burglar, no one is in, use a ladder and help yourself.”
So your country does not need more lerts, no need to be alert, what we need is complete and utter imbeciles to populate our planet earth.
To me they are in the ascendancy.
Have you ever lived with someone that was not normal. I am no angel, but I live by logic and by common sense, well I try, but not everyone is the same.
I remember Bill Barr. He was an Inspector at Brent, and we went to his nice big house in Wembley one sunny day in the 70’s. All the windows were open as you would expect, and he was rushing down the driveway, then he shouted at his mother in law who was house sitting. The central heating was on , yes it was a sunny summer’s day. He told me that she put so much electricity on one day, the tar insulation on the underground main cables to the meter was melting.
Now I have known loopy Lou like that. How come a prospective live in partner is on her best behaviour, then resorts to selfish madness after a year, when you have moved in together. Open the windows in the winter with the heating on, close the windows and doors in the summer, and switch on electronic air fresheners, instead of allowing natural fresh air in through the windows. Energy conservation, what is that, a £400 utility bill to boot. Mind you recycling was not her pet subject either, food always came out of a packet and her way was to landfill all the rubbish, as well as waste energy resources and warm up the whole planet. What a wanker. BTW apart from watching murders on TV Ms Gordina Blue loves to watch cooking programmes...................WHY...............when it obviously comes in packets and tins !!!!!
Oh one more thing, the bathroom window which opened sideways, she would keep that open when the house was vacant, but at least she did not put a sign out saying “dear burglar, no one is in, use a ladder and help yourself.”
So your country does not need more lerts, no need to be alert, what we need is complete and utter imbeciles to populate our planet earth.
To me they are in the ascendancy.
how to not park and ride
I went for an interview yesterday with Oxfordshire County Council. The job is one I could do, have done with my eyes blind folded. But they had 7 to interview including 2 internal candidates, so normally these jobs go internally and they only advertise to keep the Unions happy. After all they know the internal candidate. The job was about doorstep crime and protecting the old infirmed and vulnerable against the cruel and unscrupulous. Like these roofers that knock on an old dear’s house and say she has a loose roof tile and to fix it will cost £50, then they charge her £1,000 or even more, and there was nothing wrong with the roof anyway. Sometimes these parasites actually take the petrified old dear down to the Post Office in their dirty van to cash the giro. They put further fear into them saying if the work is not done there and then and the loose tile falls on someone walking past, they would be liable.
So the job was to prevent and cure, to educate and enforce, to be on David’s side versus Goliath.
Now I left in plenty of time to drive 66 miles to Oxford, and of course when I get to the M40, the Police have closed it in both directions (multiple pile up – fatal collision). So I still have time, but time is ticking on, and my car is only ticking over, yes gridlock, for thousands of us. So I telephoned, the recruitment department, I was in Oxfordshire, I was 17 miles away. They unhelpfully said follow the diversion signs, when I asked them for an alternative route, derrrrrrrrr, if there were diversion signs would I be on the phone asking them. Wait for it, it gets better. I saw one Policeman on my road the A43, because all the action was on the closed motorway. So I drive out of the queue to get some vague direction signs, and then get back into the queue. By now I am late, still talking to the interviewing panel by mobile phone.
Oxford is park & ride, the town council hates the motorist. I only know this through life experience, there was no details given to me when I was asked to attend an interview. So I head for the park and ride signs, get on this bus, ask the driver do I need a ticket, “no”, he says. ”Ok it’s just step on”, “yes” , says another passenger. “Do you go to New Road” I ask the driver, “don’t know” is the answer, ok we have a live one here, or do we. “Do you go to County Hall”, “yes”, well this is progress, “can you tell me when we get there”, “if I remember”, more helpful information from this public service provider, don’t you just love public transport. “You want single or return”, he says, “why you said I don’t need a ticket”, “single or return”, “well my car is here its park and ride so why on earth would I need a single ticket”, “£2.20” he says, “you said I didn’t need a ticket”, by now the queue is like 10 miles, long , 10 people actually I exaggerate. I know it’s been 40 years since I was on a bus, but when my mum used to claim half fare for me and tell me to shrink in the seat, we had conductors and it was never this complicated.
Next, I am now finally sitting on the bus having given up talking to the moron behind the steering wheel. I then phoned the council again, telling them I am now on one of their buses heading (hopefully) in their direction, but asking them for a landmark so I would know when to get off, as the driver had been so helpful. Guess what, no one in the council could tell me if the bus I was on would get there. I was even given another telephone number to call, but it was the wrong number (of course).
BUT, help was at hand a fellow female passenger obviously took pity on the blind talking to the blind and leading nowhere fast. She basically said hold my hand you’re a stranger in Oxford (paradise), and I did, noting that I had just spent £7 on phone calls for no help whatsoever.
The interview was nice , relaxed as an interview could be. I talked a lot, but as any reader would read I have a lot to say sometimes. But then I was told the wrong bus stop for the return trip to wherever I had left the car, no maps, no “you are here” signs, the kind of obvious helpful information you may think for a well established park and ride system, well established meaning years not quality.
So when the bus turns up and the bus driver sees me ready to board of course he puts the accelerator down and like a Mr Bean sketch as I run in hot pursuit in my new suit (give a little whistle & flute) and briefcase he parks at the stop I should have been at, sees me in his mirrors and pulls away in true bus driver trained fashion.
Obviously I got a bus eventually, else I could not write the tale, but why are we surrounded by incompetency. Gissa job I could do that. Actually I could not, I could not be as incompetent as those that cost me £7 and £2.20.
So the job was to prevent and cure, to educate and enforce, to be on David’s side versus Goliath.
Now I left in plenty of time to drive 66 miles to Oxford, and of course when I get to the M40, the Police have closed it in both directions (multiple pile up – fatal collision). So I still have time, but time is ticking on, and my car is only ticking over, yes gridlock, for thousands of us. So I telephoned, the recruitment department, I was in Oxfordshire, I was 17 miles away. They unhelpfully said follow the diversion signs, when I asked them for an alternative route, derrrrrrrrr, if there were diversion signs would I be on the phone asking them. Wait for it, it gets better. I saw one Policeman on my road the A43, because all the action was on the closed motorway. So I drive out of the queue to get some vague direction signs, and then get back into the queue. By now I am late, still talking to the interviewing panel by mobile phone.
Oxford is park & ride, the town council hates the motorist. I only know this through life experience, there was no details given to me when I was asked to attend an interview. So I head for the park and ride signs, get on this bus, ask the driver do I need a ticket, “no”, he says. ”Ok it’s just step on”, “yes” , says another passenger. “Do you go to New Road” I ask the driver, “don’t know” is the answer, ok we have a live one here, or do we. “Do you go to County Hall”, “yes”, well this is progress, “can you tell me when we get there”, “if I remember”, more helpful information from this public service provider, don’t you just love public transport. “You want single or return”, he says, “why you said I don’t need a ticket”, “single or return”, “well my car is here its park and ride so why on earth would I need a single ticket”, “£2.20” he says, “you said I didn’t need a ticket”, by now the queue is like 10 miles, long , 10 people actually I exaggerate. I know it’s been 40 years since I was on a bus, but when my mum used to claim half fare for me and tell me to shrink in the seat, we had conductors and it was never this complicated.
Next, I am now finally sitting on the bus having given up talking to the moron behind the steering wheel. I then phoned the council again, telling them I am now on one of their buses heading (hopefully) in their direction, but asking them for a landmark so I would know when to get off, as the driver had been so helpful. Guess what, no one in the council could tell me if the bus I was on would get there. I was even given another telephone number to call, but it was the wrong number (of course).
BUT, help was at hand a fellow female passenger obviously took pity on the blind talking to the blind and leading nowhere fast. She basically said hold my hand you’re a stranger in Oxford (paradise), and I did, noting that I had just spent £7 on phone calls for no help whatsoever.
The interview was nice , relaxed as an interview could be. I talked a lot, but as any reader would read I have a lot to say sometimes. But then I was told the wrong bus stop for the return trip to wherever I had left the car, no maps, no “you are here” signs, the kind of obvious helpful information you may think for a well established park and ride system, well established meaning years not quality.
So when the bus turns up and the bus driver sees me ready to board of course he puts the accelerator down and like a Mr Bean sketch as I run in hot pursuit in my new suit (give a little whistle & flute) and briefcase he parks at the stop I should have been at, sees me in his mirrors and pulls away in true bus driver trained fashion.
Obviously I got a bus eventually, else I could not write the tale, but why are we surrounded by incompetency. Gissa job I could do that. Actually I could not, I could not be as incompetent as those that cost me £7 and £2.20.
Monday, 11 May 2009
10 years ahead of his time.
Sir Alf Ramsey, former Tottenham Hotspur right back and England Manager when we won the World Cup in 1966, once said of Martin Peters he was a footballer 10 years ahead of his time. Peters was a midfield player who ghosted in to score a lot of goals. The sort of player fairly common now in 2009, but in the 70's he was the sort of player defenders failed to pick up, hence the goals. Peters also played for Tottenham, the club I have supported all my life of course.
I have often thought I was 10 years ahead of my time. I think most people do enough to get by. Nothing wrong in that, it is what the world expects. If you are riskier, then you take chances, breaking new ground. You are not safe, and lots of employers will not like that. Safe is the better option, nobody notices safe, people notice risk takers.
I remember my first case, the first day I went out as a Trading Standards qualified Inspector. The boss had sent me out with Bill Johnson a trainee to test weighbridges, big road scales for weighing lorries. At lunch time we were in Harrow, and I wandered around the biggest department store we had in the area. I always had a copy of Shaw's Price Guide in my pocket, and just checked a few prices of the toiletries as there was a Sale on. I noticed none of the products, like deodorants, shampoos, soap, were reduced in price, despite the signs stating 33% off. So the rookie Inspector asked to see the Manager. Bill was saying Allan forget it we are on weighbridge duties. No, I said, and we spent the next 4 hours confiscating products and signs as examples and as evidence, because Sopers of Harrow, part of Debenhams were holding a bogus sale, a sale that never was. We arrived back late with a van load of evidence, men's wear, ladies wear, toiletries, much to the complete astonishment of my boss.
That was the 1st day they sent me out. I was always best left to my own devices. Self motivation, bringing in the results. Interfere with me doing the job and I was not happy.
The same happened 20 years later when it took me 3 days to find Alistair Leslie Woods, after Waltham Forest Trading Standards and the Police had been looking for him for 6 months. Woods ran a Good Restaurant Guide scam. He had every Thomson's telephone directory across the UK. He wrote to every cafe and restaurant listed and told them "our inspectors have visited your establishment, unbeknown to you. They found the quality of service was 94%, the quality of food 97%. As such your details will be published in our forthcoming guide. You can have a certificate for £19 to display on your premises". Every restaurant got the same letter. There were no inspectors. Woods printed off a cheap standard certificate template off his computer and made half a million pounds in 6 months. He was South African. But all crooks need to bank the cheques, and I found out his address not to where the Royal Mail delivered the cheques to. That was an accommodation address run by another crook he despised authority and society. No I found out where the Bank sent Woods his statements, and when I knocked on the door posing as the electoral register official, a man with a South African accent opened the window pretending he was a plumber fixing the shower. By the way there was no plumber's van in the road !!!
So Woods little venture came to a halt and his 7 printers would print no more.
At last the dilatory authorities got some good headlines. The Boss at Waltham Forest even got some bridge rolls and orange squash in plastic cups, to shake my hand infront of the new staff.
But, I tell these stories because they were perceived as risk taking. Going above and beyond, showing initiative. I just called it doing my job, earning my salary as opposed to turning up to work having a chat and a giggle and getting a salary.
At the end of the nineties I had my own company Sharper Image. I had Ian, my graduate son, working for me then, he was learning how to make TV programmes. We were on out way to Camden in my car to sign a contract for a series on Discovery Channel regarding Inventions.
Today there are a few programmes informing us about Whittle's jet engine and Baird's early TV set. We know about light bulbs and the telephone. But we don't learn this at school. I never did in science at Grammar School anyway. Biro, was Hungarian . He dies a pauper before the 2nd world war. His patented invention was not taken up till the war when the American army needed a pen that would write in all weathers in the Pacific theatre against Japan. Chester Carlton invented the dry paper copier Xerox, in Greek. The Californian draftsman in the 1920's was fed up drawing and redrawing the same thing over and over again. It took him 28 years to find a company to take up his machine. Again he died a pauper. Fascinating human interest stories behind every day appliances we use.
I had spent 6 months researching for the series proposal, but they reneged on the deal, over ruled by HQ in Washington that they were to run repeats instead. That was a nail in my coffin, one too many.
That was the price to pay for being 10 years ahead of your time, being inventive about inventions, showing initiative, showing a risk. The repeat was the safe option.
Well Sharper Image could not exist against that sort of competition in the market place.
thats all for now folks.........................
I have often thought I was 10 years ahead of my time. I think most people do enough to get by. Nothing wrong in that, it is what the world expects. If you are riskier, then you take chances, breaking new ground. You are not safe, and lots of employers will not like that. Safe is the better option, nobody notices safe, people notice risk takers.
I remember my first case, the first day I went out as a Trading Standards qualified Inspector. The boss had sent me out with Bill Johnson a trainee to test weighbridges, big road scales for weighing lorries. At lunch time we were in Harrow, and I wandered around the biggest department store we had in the area. I always had a copy of Shaw's Price Guide in my pocket, and just checked a few prices of the toiletries as there was a Sale on. I noticed none of the products, like deodorants, shampoos, soap, were reduced in price, despite the signs stating 33% off. So the rookie Inspector asked to see the Manager. Bill was saying Allan forget it we are on weighbridge duties. No, I said, and we spent the next 4 hours confiscating products and signs as examples and as evidence, because Sopers of Harrow, part of Debenhams were holding a bogus sale, a sale that never was. We arrived back late with a van load of evidence, men's wear, ladies wear, toiletries, much to the complete astonishment of my boss.
That was the 1st day they sent me out. I was always best left to my own devices. Self motivation, bringing in the results. Interfere with me doing the job and I was not happy.
The same happened 20 years later when it took me 3 days to find Alistair Leslie Woods, after Waltham Forest Trading Standards and the Police had been looking for him for 6 months. Woods ran a Good Restaurant Guide scam. He had every Thomson's telephone directory across the UK. He wrote to every cafe and restaurant listed and told them "our inspectors have visited your establishment, unbeknown to you. They found the quality of service was 94%, the quality of food 97%. As such your details will be published in our forthcoming guide. You can have a certificate for £19 to display on your premises". Every restaurant got the same letter. There were no inspectors. Woods printed off a cheap standard certificate template off his computer and made half a million pounds in 6 months. He was South African. But all crooks need to bank the cheques, and I found out his address not to where the Royal Mail delivered the cheques to. That was an accommodation address run by another crook he despised authority and society. No I found out where the Bank sent Woods his statements, and when I knocked on the door posing as the electoral register official, a man with a South African accent opened the window pretending he was a plumber fixing the shower. By the way there was no plumber's van in the road !!!
So Woods little venture came to a halt and his 7 printers would print no more.
At last the dilatory authorities got some good headlines. The Boss at Waltham Forest even got some bridge rolls and orange squash in plastic cups, to shake my hand infront of the new staff.
But, I tell these stories because they were perceived as risk taking. Going above and beyond, showing initiative. I just called it doing my job, earning my salary as opposed to turning up to work having a chat and a giggle and getting a salary.
At the end of the nineties I had my own company Sharper Image. I had Ian, my graduate son, working for me then, he was learning how to make TV programmes. We were on out way to Camden in my car to sign a contract for a series on Discovery Channel regarding Inventions.
Today there are a few programmes informing us about Whittle's jet engine and Baird's early TV set. We know about light bulbs and the telephone. But we don't learn this at school. I never did in science at Grammar School anyway. Biro, was Hungarian . He dies a pauper before the 2nd world war. His patented invention was not taken up till the war when the American army needed a pen that would write in all weathers in the Pacific theatre against Japan. Chester Carlton invented the dry paper copier Xerox, in Greek. The Californian draftsman in the 1920's was fed up drawing and redrawing the same thing over and over again. It took him 28 years to find a company to take up his machine. Again he died a pauper. Fascinating human interest stories behind every day appliances we use.
I had spent 6 months researching for the series proposal, but they reneged on the deal, over ruled by HQ in Washington that they were to run repeats instead. That was a nail in my coffin, one too many.
That was the price to pay for being 10 years ahead of your time, being inventive about inventions, showing initiative, showing a risk. The repeat was the safe option.
Well Sharper Image could not exist against that sort of competition in the market place.
thats all for now folks.........................
Knowing Me Knowing You ha ha
Mr Personality:
I am a Leo, proud, and mild, unless my tail is trod on or my territory is invaded. So I can react if provoked. But I prefer to laze in the sun and be content. I also need a lioness by my side that I can be proud of. Sometimes in life that has happened, other times it has not, and I can be a vacuum without love and affection. I am industrious too, turn my hand to anything and have achieved much in work rest and play.
But, I have also met my Ides of March probably on 5 occasions, 3 at work, 2 at home. I don't suffer fools gladly and I cannot countenance betrayal. Having said that I like beauty, style, poise and grace in all things. I like travel, history, wining & dining and dancing. I can be romantic and charming, even funny at times, but also serious. I am creative and innovative. I have led from the front and by example. I did not get where I am today without the courage of my convictions, to boldly go onward and upward, it's called survival. I would like the elixire of life, but Father Christmas has never answered my wish list.
I am a Leo, proud, and mild, unless my tail is trod on or my territory is invaded. So I can react if provoked. But I prefer to laze in the sun and be content. I also need a lioness by my side that I can be proud of. Sometimes in life that has happened, other times it has not, and I can be a vacuum without love and affection. I am industrious too, turn my hand to anything and have achieved much in work rest and play.
But, I have also met my Ides of March probably on 5 occasions, 3 at work, 2 at home. I don't suffer fools gladly and I cannot countenance betrayal. Having said that I like beauty, style, poise and grace in all things. I like travel, history, wining & dining and dancing. I can be romantic and charming, even funny at times, but also serious. I am creative and innovative. I have led from the front and by example. I did not get where I am today without the courage of my convictions, to boldly go onward and upward, it's called survival. I would like the elixire of life, but Father Christmas has never answered my wish list.
Monday, 27 April 2009
People ask me how did you do it
From the Cradle to the Grave; 2 examples from over 600 courts cases and 250 films.
1. Derrick James Davies:
Christmas time 1998, I take a telephone call from Leyton Police CID. They have information that a local warehouse is holding counterfeit products like videos. It was new ground to them and the DC wanted to know what I, as Team Leader in Trading Standards could do. The first thing I did was to discretely drive around the address a unit in a large industrial estate, and I did not wear a suit.
I then applied for a search warrant at the local magistrates court with reason to believe offences were being committed . In other instances further surveillance is possible, but there is always the danger of spooking the target or being spotted by friendly neighbours. So surveillance has to be timed for maximum impact minimal use. Even so with the best intelligence gathering, it is more or less impossible to know what is behind that door, if the public at large do not have access and one cannot pose as a mystery shopper agent provocateur to see the lay out.
Every raid is mounted at dawn or a time when the target will be busy. There can be no guarantees the target will be there. Vehicles can be identified parked outside , but if luck is not on the side of law enforcement, the target could be having a cup of tea round the corner or going to the dentist etc etc. The best laid plans………….
Also these raids are multi-agency. Police and Trading Standards combined. Police have the power to arrest, Trading Standards the expertise in this instance. So field teams have to be briefed as to the building, their stations, individual responsibilities and what we anticipate. Also there is a question of logistics and manpower.
At 11 am 8th December 1998, two teams approached the warehouse, one to the back door down an alleyway and one to the front entrance. I led the front door charge with a video camera recording and holding the warrant. I had 3 officers, the Police had 5 plain clothes detectives.
As I opened the front door there were the inevitable shouts from the occupants, as I announced our identities and our mission. The scene we met were we totally unprepared for. We had stumbled on the biggest production of counterfeit designer wear this country had known. There were computerised sewing machines embroidering 52 brands onto garments. Any name you could imagine, Addidas, Nike, Versace, Hugo Boss, the list was endless. So was the stock. Hundreds of thousands of garments in production and in store. Downstairs was the showroom, shelves bedecked with counterfeit goods, even perfume and champagne. Upstairs were the women at the machines and conveyor belts. Who was in charge, well no body of course. All the staff remained silent. All were arrested and taken to Leyton Police Station in a conveyor belt of white Transit vans. That occupied all the cells at that Police Station. Most importantly Derrick was arrested running out the back door as we came in the front. Derrick was the most aggressive swearing individual I have ever met. Subsequent enquiries revealed his family were connected to the Kray Twins. Derrick professed to being just the delivery driver he delivered boxes , just boxes. But in his haste Derrick left vital clues. An address book full of contacts for “badges”, “tshirts”, “booze”, “buttons”. He also left handwriting, notes, calculations, an iou book. This was to prove his downfall later in court as forensic hand writing analysis proved that his documents in his name, were written by the same person as these business documents.
Derrick when interviewed would have none of it. All the official records of renting the warehouse were in false names and addresses, as was the telephone. 150,000 garments and 10 machines were confiscated and vans had to be hired and another warehouse to store and sort this vast amount of stock for analysis by the true brand owners. Derrick was also a cash merchant, so he left no trace there either. Any credit cards he took out, he would use for short periods either to withdraw cash balances and then not repay , or on trips to Las Vegas or Harrods on Valentines Day.
The Crown Court Case lasted 2 weeks. Derrick was charged with the Common Law offence of conspiracy, to defraud brand owners. I spent 4 days in the witness box, 3 of them under cross examination. However that was not until Derrick had skipped bail from the first court date and took the first Easy Jet flight from Luton Airport to his Villa in Majorca. I then had to liaise with Interpol to ask the Spanish Police to extradite him. But Derrick was on the run and 2 years after his initial arrest he was arrested again by Regional Crime Squad in a sting operation for importation of drugs. So Derrick was now in custody. Interestingly enough he got off the drugs case, saying he was just the driver !
In 2003 he was given the longest sentence for any brand counterfeiter 5 years. Though Derrick spent his money on a champagne life style, he lost his Mansion in Essex, cars & vans and aVilla in Spain, as assets in proceeds of crime. They were sold for the benefit of the State. Derrick also got divorced to try to keep his bricks and mortar and put everything in the wife’s name, but that was not accepted by the court.
The happy ending to this story is that there are charities that take these seized garments and machinery after the court case. They de logo the offending marks and are able to clothe the needy.
2. Johnny Morris:
In 1991 Thermastor, was Britain’s’ 2nd largest double glazing company. Margaret Thatcher was on TV being shown the Peterborough factory by one of her captain’s of industry Johnny Morris. Then in the late spring at my BBCTV Watchdog desk I read a small paragraph in the financial pages stating they had gone bust for £21m. It smelt dodgy to me, and I started making telephone calls. I met the receivers, who chose to come clean and announce their concerns.
I also chatted to the 2 ex members of staff who were left manning the telephone at the old factory. They gave me the keys to Johnny Morris’s office. His filing cabinet was like an Aladdin’s cave full of incriminating evidence.
Morris had written to all his customers asking for the balances on installation to be paid up front even up to and including the day he went into liquidation. That’s is fraudulent trading. He also had no hope of making the windows as his suppliers had not been paid and had foreclosed on delivering materials. He had also used company funds to add to the splendour of his Oxshott mansion. He also had paperwork for a phoenix company to arise from the ashes of Thermastor to carry on, even a cold calling telephone script to contact potential customers in the new business name. .
It was easy to find and film interview countless customers who had lost their life savings, double glazing does not come cheap. There were also a queue of supplier creditors including the printing firm that had worked on the new phoenix company paperwork. These unpaid suppliers were now in danger of going to the wall too, after the collapse of Thermastor for £21m.
Morris was doorstepped by me and a film crew, with a group of his customers as he arrived for the creditor’s meeting. In the interests of balance, he was given ample opportunity to state his case, and he did try to bluff his way out of it on camera.
After the half hour expose, on peak time BBC1, the files were handed over to the Serious Fraud Office, for his conviction. However the money had all gone.
1. Derrick James Davies:
Christmas time 1998, I take a telephone call from Leyton Police CID. They have information that a local warehouse is holding counterfeit products like videos. It was new ground to them and the DC wanted to know what I, as Team Leader in Trading Standards could do. The first thing I did was to discretely drive around the address a unit in a large industrial estate, and I did not wear a suit.
I then applied for a search warrant at the local magistrates court with reason to believe offences were being committed . In other instances further surveillance is possible, but there is always the danger of spooking the target or being spotted by friendly neighbours. So surveillance has to be timed for maximum impact minimal use. Even so with the best intelligence gathering, it is more or less impossible to know what is behind that door, if the public at large do not have access and one cannot pose as a mystery shopper agent provocateur to see the lay out.
Every raid is mounted at dawn or a time when the target will be busy. There can be no guarantees the target will be there. Vehicles can be identified parked outside , but if luck is not on the side of law enforcement, the target could be having a cup of tea round the corner or going to the dentist etc etc. The best laid plans………….
Also these raids are multi-agency. Police and Trading Standards combined. Police have the power to arrest, Trading Standards the expertise in this instance. So field teams have to be briefed as to the building, their stations, individual responsibilities and what we anticipate. Also there is a question of logistics and manpower.
At 11 am 8th December 1998, two teams approached the warehouse, one to the back door down an alleyway and one to the front entrance. I led the front door charge with a video camera recording and holding the warrant. I had 3 officers, the Police had 5 plain clothes detectives.
As I opened the front door there were the inevitable shouts from the occupants, as I announced our identities and our mission. The scene we met were we totally unprepared for. We had stumbled on the biggest production of counterfeit designer wear this country had known. There were computerised sewing machines embroidering 52 brands onto garments. Any name you could imagine, Addidas, Nike, Versace, Hugo Boss, the list was endless. So was the stock. Hundreds of thousands of garments in production and in store. Downstairs was the showroom, shelves bedecked with counterfeit goods, even perfume and champagne. Upstairs were the women at the machines and conveyor belts. Who was in charge, well no body of course. All the staff remained silent. All were arrested and taken to Leyton Police Station in a conveyor belt of white Transit vans. That occupied all the cells at that Police Station. Most importantly Derrick was arrested running out the back door as we came in the front. Derrick was the most aggressive swearing individual I have ever met. Subsequent enquiries revealed his family were connected to the Kray Twins. Derrick professed to being just the delivery driver he delivered boxes , just boxes. But in his haste Derrick left vital clues. An address book full of contacts for “badges”, “tshirts”, “booze”, “buttons”. He also left handwriting, notes, calculations, an iou book. This was to prove his downfall later in court as forensic hand writing analysis proved that his documents in his name, were written by the same person as these business documents.
Derrick when interviewed would have none of it. All the official records of renting the warehouse were in false names and addresses, as was the telephone. 150,000 garments and 10 machines were confiscated and vans had to be hired and another warehouse to store and sort this vast amount of stock for analysis by the true brand owners. Derrick was also a cash merchant, so he left no trace there either. Any credit cards he took out, he would use for short periods either to withdraw cash balances and then not repay , or on trips to Las Vegas or Harrods on Valentines Day.
The Crown Court Case lasted 2 weeks. Derrick was charged with the Common Law offence of conspiracy, to defraud brand owners. I spent 4 days in the witness box, 3 of them under cross examination. However that was not until Derrick had skipped bail from the first court date and took the first Easy Jet flight from Luton Airport to his Villa in Majorca. I then had to liaise with Interpol to ask the Spanish Police to extradite him. But Derrick was on the run and 2 years after his initial arrest he was arrested again by Regional Crime Squad in a sting operation for importation of drugs. So Derrick was now in custody. Interestingly enough he got off the drugs case, saying he was just the driver !
In 2003 he was given the longest sentence for any brand counterfeiter 5 years. Though Derrick spent his money on a champagne life style, he lost his Mansion in Essex, cars & vans and aVilla in Spain, as assets in proceeds of crime. They were sold for the benefit of the State. Derrick also got divorced to try to keep his bricks and mortar and put everything in the wife’s name, but that was not accepted by the court.
The happy ending to this story is that there are charities that take these seized garments and machinery after the court case. They de logo the offending marks and are able to clothe the needy.
2. Johnny Morris:
In 1991 Thermastor, was Britain’s’ 2nd largest double glazing company. Margaret Thatcher was on TV being shown the Peterborough factory by one of her captain’s of industry Johnny Morris. Then in the late spring at my BBCTV Watchdog desk I read a small paragraph in the financial pages stating they had gone bust for £21m. It smelt dodgy to me, and I started making telephone calls. I met the receivers, who chose to come clean and announce their concerns.
I also chatted to the 2 ex members of staff who were left manning the telephone at the old factory. They gave me the keys to Johnny Morris’s office. His filing cabinet was like an Aladdin’s cave full of incriminating evidence.
Morris had written to all his customers asking for the balances on installation to be paid up front even up to and including the day he went into liquidation. That’s is fraudulent trading. He also had no hope of making the windows as his suppliers had not been paid and had foreclosed on delivering materials. He had also used company funds to add to the splendour of his Oxshott mansion. He also had paperwork for a phoenix company to arise from the ashes of Thermastor to carry on, even a cold calling telephone script to contact potential customers in the new business name. .
It was easy to find and film interview countless customers who had lost their life savings, double glazing does not come cheap. There were also a queue of supplier creditors including the printing firm that had worked on the new phoenix company paperwork. These unpaid suppliers were now in danger of going to the wall too, after the collapse of Thermastor for £21m.
Morris was doorstepped by me and a film crew, with a group of his customers as he arrived for the creditor’s meeting. In the interests of balance, he was given ample opportunity to state his case, and he did try to bluff his way out of it on camera.
After the half hour expose, on peak time BBC1, the files were handed over to the Serious Fraud Office, for his conviction. However the money had all gone.
BBC1 but this is 2
This is the BBC.
the story continues.........still BBC1 not BBC2 although this is number 2 following number 1, confused you will be……..
I got into the BBC because I had contacts as a former Trading Standards Officer and Investigative techniques. BBC does not really employ investigators so I was a unique animal. The change from having a team of officers to being on my jack jones took some getting used to. Also I no longer had a warrant card or statutory powers. But I soon learned that people would tell me things anyway. Sometimes it was in a brown paper envelope, other times they would be interviewed, even on camera. Of course everything had to be substantiated, else on the balance of probabilities I and Aunty Beeb could get sued for libel. But we had to show balance and did not have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt. Some stories came direct from the victim, others through the authorities who had drawn a blank. When you are in law enforcement, some things are wrong but not illegal, but the public don’t understand. When you are in TV the wrong things that are not illegal should be and hence the story.
One story I did about BSM was put on hold for a week after the BBC lawyers said I had to talk to more than 25 ex instructors. The following week we met and they asked me how many, I said 600 is that enough. They grinned. Those were the days my friend, BSM were very hostile, refused an interview, and were taking full page ads in the Telegraph, Times and Guardian about me and the Beeb saying it was all lies lies and more damn lies. The Editor David Lloyd and I went to stage our own Press conferences to counter the BSM propaganda. Lloydy was very happy, he had never had such a high profile. The ex public school boy with the same haircut was full or pomp and circumstance.
I even made his cricket team, that was the Beeb in those days, cucumber sandwiches, Pimms and Cricket, though they could not get me out, and I had to retire to let someone else bat, that was not cricket old chap to stay in for hours !!! It’s not the winning it’s the taking part, sod that for a game of soldiers even cricketers. When we fielded once the Deputy Editor hit me for six once, so next ball I charged down and put every ounce of effort in the delivery, and caught and bowled him to me great obvious delight. Now now Allan.
I remember a summer party at Frank Bough's house, we had a proper cricket match on his garden, yes it was that big on the banks of the river Thames. And when the cricket was over Sue Nix and I sat by the river, I always called her Sue no Knicks, she was beautiful.
What had BSM done I here you bib and sound your horn. Well the law allows driving instructors to learn their trade while they teach their pupils to drive. But they have to be supervised by qualified tutors. BSM in the mid eighties were masters at deception. They fooled Dept of Transport Inspectors into thinking dead instructors were still alive and not only kicking but driving.... out on a lesson, also instructors who had emigrated to Canada were still on the books and conducting lessons in Chiswick London W4 according to BSM. Well I have heard of commuting and getting on yer bike for a job, but really transatlantic flights for a one hour lesson, I don’t think so, never mind the jet lag sitting behind the dashboard of a Metro.
So for the 3 days before transmission I worked 22 hours a day, then the 6th Floor came to view the film that was making all, the headlines before it had been seen. The 6th Floor were the big BBC bosses and we all had to stand to attention. So the programme went out, and so did Jacobs the Chairman , who was also treasurer of the Liberal Party, whose Peers had blocked new legislation that BSM did not like. So BSM now closed down branches and became a franchise, and, oh the laws they were blocking got passed.
Pooped , yes I was, but adrenaline keeps you going.
Too pooped to party though, but the BBC did have some wonderful memorable parties where we would all sing Hey Jude for the final 30 minutes at some exotic location. I normally did the music which helped, as far as I was concerned, but these events were tremendous for loyalty, morale and camaraderie.
A film was always made for the Christmas party. These days I spend Christmas parties on my own with left hand pulling the cracker with my right hand. But at the Beeb, one film I made was about the Editor Nick Hayes on Watchdog. He was still a hippy in the 80s, curly hair that had not seen a brush since he was born and he was now 30 something. Beard too, floppy jumper and corduroy trousers and trainers.
So for the film I donned a wig a floppy jumper trainers and corduroys. I became Nick Hayes his double.
Now Nick had justgot his driving licence, late in life and to everyone’s astonishment he bought his first car and what was it…………..
that’s right a Porsche !! We went to Scarborough once, not for a fair but a conference. I felt every cat’s eye on the Motorway as passenger in the Porsche on its maiden voyage, bought with the proceeds from the divorce settlement. Not as bad as Sarah Spiller driving though, the wipers would be on double speed, and the SUN WAS SHINING. Lovely Sarah she used to put the wipers on to demist the windscreen, she didn’t realise they WERE ON THE OUTSIDE !!! You can see why I normally drove now can’t you. Another Spiller story she parks the hire car overnight in an NCP car park in Birmingham. Next morning at the hotel, “where is the car Sarah”. “Oh it’s at the NCP car park”, “Which one”, the multi-story one”, “they are all multi-story”. So for the next hour we wander around Birmingham City centre looking for a car park with a “twirly bit to get in”, then “what floor” “errrrrrr”, so 6 floors later we find it. Now you know why I generally drove !!!
So back to the plot………..Christmas time filming for the party premiere , the Nick double at the bus stop hand request goes out bus zooms passed, as they do.
But the funniest thing was we took his keys one day, drove his light blue Porsche with 87 learners plates stuck all over it, and in one scene Nick is watching this film at the party completely oblivious to what the film was about, and he sees a car like his, going through frame backwards then forwards, then backwards again, then kangaroo style, hazard lights on then indicating right and turning left. It was sooooooooooooo funny seeing his face , smiling at first then he saw the number plate, and he realised IT WAS HIS CAR, he he ha ha.
2 years later I still had my job, and he made me Deputy Editor, he he ha ha………..party time.
To be continued stay tuned to this channel,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
the story continues.........still BBC1 not BBC2 although this is number 2 following number 1, confused you will be……..
I got into the BBC because I had contacts as a former Trading Standards Officer and Investigative techniques. BBC does not really employ investigators so I was a unique animal. The change from having a team of officers to being on my jack jones took some getting used to. Also I no longer had a warrant card or statutory powers. But I soon learned that people would tell me things anyway. Sometimes it was in a brown paper envelope, other times they would be interviewed, even on camera. Of course everything had to be substantiated, else on the balance of probabilities I and Aunty Beeb could get sued for libel. But we had to show balance and did not have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt. Some stories came direct from the victim, others through the authorities who had drawn a blank. When you are in law enforcement, some things are wrong but not illegal, but the public don’t understand. When you are in TV the wrong things that are not illegal should be and hence the story.
One story I did about BSM was put on hold for a week after the BBC lawyers said I had to talk to more than 25 ex instructors. The following week we met and they asked me how many, I said 600 is that enough. They grinned. Those were the days my friend, BSM were very hostile, refused an interview, and were taking full page ads in the Telegraph, Times and Guardian about me and the Beeb saying it was all lies lies and more damn lies. The Editor David Lloyd and I went to stage our own Press conferences to counter the BSM propaganda. Lloydy was very happy, he had never had such a high profile. The ex public school boy with the same haircut was full or pomp and circumstance.
I even made his cricket team, that was the Beeb in those days, cucumber sandwiches, Pimms and Cricket, though they could not get me out, and I had to retire to let someone else bat, that was not cricket old chap to stay in for hours !!! It’s not the winning it’s the taking part, sod that for a game of soldiers even cricketers. When we fielded once the Deputy Editor hit me for six once, so next ball I charged down and put every ounce of effort in the delivery, and caught and bowled him to me great obvious delight. Now now Allan.
I remember a summer party at Frank Bough's house, we had a proper cricket match on his garden, yes it was that big on the banks of the river Thames. And when the cricket was over Sue Nix and I sat by the river, I always called her Sue no Knicks, she was beautiful.
What had BSM done I here you bib and sound your horn. Well the law allows driving instructors to learn their trade while they teach their pupils to drive. But they have to be supervised by qualified tutors. BSM in the mid eighties were masters at deception. They fooled Dept of Transport Inspectors into thinking dead instructors were still alive and not only kicking but driving.... out on a lesson, also instructors who had emigrated to Canada were still on the books and conducting lessons in Chiswick London W4 according to BSM. Well I have heard of commuting and getting on yer bike for a job, but really transatlantic flights for a one hour lesson, I don’t think so, never mind the jet lag sitting behind the dashboard of a Metro.
So for the 3 days before transmission I worked 22 hours a day, then the 6th Floor came to view the film that was making all, the headlines before it had been seen. The 6th Floor were the big BBC bosses and we all had to stand to attention. So the programme went out, and so did Jacobs the Chairman , who was also treasurer of the Liberal Party, whose Peers had blocked new legislation that BSM did not like. So BSM now closed down branches and became a franchise, and, oh the laws they were blocking got passed.
Pooped , yes I was, but adrenaline keeps you going.
Too pooped to party though, but the BBC did have some wonderful memorable parties where we would all sing Hey Jude for the final 30 minutes at some exotic location. I normally did the music which helped, as far as I was concerned, but these events were tremendous for loyalty, morale and camaraderie.
A film was always made for the Christmas party. These days I spend Christmas parties on my own with left hand pulling the cracker with my right hand. But at the Beeb, one film I made was about the Editor Nick Hayes on Watchdog. He was still a hippy in the 80s, curly hair that had not seen a brush since he was born and he was now 30 something. Beard too, floppy jumper and corduroy trousers and trainers.
So for the film I donned a wig a floppy jumper trainers and corduroys. I became Nick Hayes his double.
Now Nick had justgot his driving licence, late in life and to everyone’s astonishment he bought his first car and what was it…………..
that’s right a Porsche !! We went to Scarborough once, not for a fair but a conference. I felt every cat’s eye on the Motorway as passenger in the Porsche on its maiden voyage, bought with the proceeds from the divorce settlement. Not as bad as Sarah Spiller driving though, the wipers would be on double speed, and the SUN WAS SHINING. Lovely Sarah she used to put the wipers on to demist the windscreen, she didn’t realise they WERE ON THE OUTSIDE !!! You can see why I normally drove now can’t you. Another Spiller story she parks the hire car overnight in an NCP car park in Birmingham. Next morning at the hotel, “where is the car Sarah”. “Oh it’s at the NCP car park”, “Which one”, the multi-story one”, “they are all multi-story”. So for the next hour we wander around Birmingham City centre looking for a car park with a “twirly bit to get in”, then “what floor” “errrrrrr”, so 6 floors later we find it. Now you know why I generally drove !!!
So back to the plot………..Christmas time filming for the party premiere , the Nick double at the bus stop hand request goes out bus zooms passed, as they do.
But the funniest thing was we took his keys one day, drove his light blue Porsche with 87 learners plates stuck all over it, and in one scene Nick is watching this film at the party completely oblivious to what the film was about, and he sees a car like his, going through frame backwards then forwards, then backwards again, then kangaroo style, hazard lights on then indicating right and turning left. It was sooooooooooooo funny seeing his face , smiling at first then he saw the number plate, and he realised IT WAS HIS CAR, he he ha ha.
2 years later I still had my job, and he made me Deputy Editor, he he ha ha………..party time.
To be continued stay tuned to this channel,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Thursday, 23 April 2009
This is the BBC
I said before my happiest days were at the BBC. I felt I could influence things. In Trading Standards as an officer you dealt with local and national issues. Sometimes they made the newspapers, but often no one else knew what was going on and court cases took ages. True I gave the press a lot of stories, I appeared on TV as a Trading Standards Officer in the middle of things, even filmed during a "discussion" with a "don't point that camera at me sonny, I'll shove it down your throat" video pirate in Harrow Road Paddington. Yes nice chap not exactly membership potential for the round table. It was stories I could tell to journalist that helped sell their papers, and in the end I jumped the Trading Standards ship for investigative journalism.
Why, because it was obvious to me that naming and shaming had more impact than the courts of the land. I sad indictment, but true,
So life at Lime Grove Shepherds Bush in the mid 80's in the days of Breakfast TV and Thats Life. Room 601 right at the top, overcrowded but what harmony amongst a team all wanting to do well, all wanting Watchdog to be a success. A fantastic camaraderie, Watchdog had been a slot in Nationwide and when I joined it was beginning a life on its own, a programme in it's own right against the wishes of Esther Ranzen on That's Life, consumer competition.
I remember Kevin Sutcliffe joining. Nick Hayes. the editor, used to ask me to look after the new recruits. So Kevein was under my wing for a while. Lovely lad, from Blackpool so he spoke funny, and always dressed as a rocker, but had no motorbike and no crash helmet, so was past the sell by date by 20 years for no real reason of transport, he used the bus and the tube.
Kevin walked with me to a bakers in Goldhawk Road Shepherds Bush one lunch time, and asked the lady behind the counter for barn cakes, do what she said, I was in hysterics as Kevin tried to explain, so I acted as translator for my colleague, excuse him luv I said, he's from Blackpool. On the way back munching his jam doughnut I explained to Kevin that barn cakes in London meant you were mad. loopy, as opposed to a kind of oat biscuit. A nation divided by a common language. But Kev took it well. We were soon driving up to Manchester to make some enquiries about a story and as we passed Watford Gap Services on the M1 Kev said to me "Right from now on I do the talking, 'cos they won't bloody understand you".
Which is not untrue. I remember Steve Rose coming up to a Birmingham Pub once where I had tracked down some roofers who preyed on the elderly. You know the sort that drive round, look for a house that has all the signs of an old person living in. Then knocking on the door and frightening the old folk into parting with £150 to fix a loose roof tile which was not loose in the first place. Of course the old trusted the con artist and had to take his word for it, and could not see for themselves. "Better get it fixed luv quick , if it falls and hits someone you will be liable, and it is leaking now, haven't you noticed it". Some of these cowboy builders would even rin the old dear down to the Post Office to cash the giro.
Anyway on the basis of 3 letters of a number plate I found a roofers van matching a description parked in a Pub Car Park. So I then traced where the driver lived and the film crew would turn up the next morning to doorstep the Roofer and his boss. But during our observations in the pub, surveillance and blending in with the customers, some young girl came up to Steve and said "I know you , you're from the Cup Shop", Steve's face contorted as he could not understand a word she was saying, and again I was in hysterics, knowing that the girl thought the pub was going to be raided for under age drinking by the force from the cop shop.
The doorstep, well after a night in the Holiday Inn, no expense spared on these productions, it was snowing. So I said to Lynn Faulds Wood, put a scarf on to hide her hair knock on the roofer's front door and pretend she was new in the neighbourhood, but the snow has caused a collapse of a section of her roof. Meanwhile the film crew and I hid behind a hedge in some one's front garden. Why people don't come out and say oi amazes me, must be everyday they have a film crew squatting in their front garden. So matey buys hook line and sinker the damsel in distress story and as he and Lynn walk past the garden, up pops a cameraman and a sound man like a jack in a box and Lynn whips off her scarf to confront the rogue.
Wow, we used to laugh. We were the good guys and when you saw the eyes of the bad guys and their jaw hit the deck, well that was justice and comeback for their misdeeds. It gave me a real buzz. I had 3 priorities, we had to capture on camera the villains face, if he spoke that was better, if he engaged in an interview even better. But numero uno was his face on camera. The tricks we used to get up to to get them out of their houses or lay in wait at their offices. Of course the viewer never saw what the camera crew were up to laying in wait to turn the tables on the villain. All they saw was a street interview confrontation and the villain legging it slip sliding in the snow. Nor could we laugh until it was all over, so it was bite the lip, but it still makes me burst out laughing today when I think of what we did. The film crews loved it, they knew all the background work had been done, that a plan had been made and that justice was on their side. Those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end, we did sing and dance for ever and a day.
John form Kingston was a freelance stills cameraman that I often employed, for these tricky confrontations, he could take stills as back up for the moving camera. We did a lot together, even a couple of car chases in East London and up the M11. He was there when the customers of a cheap furniture retailer went bust, a group of them came up to me and said get your cameras rolling and watch this..... and they stormed the stage at the creditors meeting and beat up the delinquent directors.
But the best one was when we asked a road sweeper to borrow his donkey jacket and his road sweeping lorry in exchange for a cup of tea and egg on toast in the corner cafe. The plan then was for John with LB of Hounslow Donkey Jacket to knock on the door and say "Is that your car mate, we are doing road sweeping, with a mechanical road sweeper, can you move your car for a minute. Of course the crook comes out to move the brand new black Mercedes and hey presto guess whose on the road sweeping machine, its the BBC film crew, by jove, and you sir are a crook and a swindler.
Scuffles there were, mainly the cameraman got the attention 1st. Part of my Producer Director job was to protect him and the rest of the crew. hence I got the nick name Big Al. There was one job, a Mock Auction, where I asked for volunteers to film the event. I took a late call that this auction was happening that evening. It's illegal, but it's the sort of sale where the auctioneer shows something really good, they have stooges in the audience who pretend to but it. Everyone else ums and ars and wants a slice of the action and of course they get boxed and wrapped up tatty junk for their money. I was in the auction using a hidden camera and sound equipment and on my cue the film crew and Sarah the reporter were to come into the hall to confront the gang. So at the end of the sale I spoke into my microphone and in came the crew and suddenly their was a pitched battle. I had bullet proof Stevens as the cameraman, he had filmed in Vietnam hence the nickname and he was a big lad. 26 seconds he had hold of his camera, before it went airborne all filmed on my hidden camera in a bag, which I had to hand over to another crew member, so as I could wade into the gang attacking my crew, meanwhile Sarah who for vanity reasons never wore her glasses when filming, walked up to the auctioneer in bliss full ignorance of all hell letting loose in her wake. So the commentary went as such "The man in the black leather jacket squaring up and engaging in fisty cuffs with the gang is in fact our producer protecting the crew, and he uses himself as a barrier to stop the gang from shutting the doors as he shouts out and calls to me, so I can run and make my escape before the doors slam shut...bang".
It does bring a whole new meaning to "as seen on television". Those were the days and nights my friend, we thought they would never end.
Most of the time the crooks who were caught out let off steam, rant and swear, just occasionally it got really nasty. Lynn got 5 yards away from me once. We were at Ron Aylwards Cheshire mansion. He was the home improvement entrepreneur, whose Sunday Times Magazine glossy advertisements offered much, solar panels, the answer to flat roof leaks, a new prestigious driveway, luxurious central heating. Trouble was with Ron Aylward the only home he improved was his own. Every time the game was up, he would fold the latest venture and a phoenix operation would rise from the ashes fo the last. For instance his central heating was a series of electric fires plugged into a hole made in partition walls. Anyway Lynn got 5 yards away from me and Mrs Aylward lashed out with a dog chain right round Lynn's face as the camera rolled.
Another time 28 stone Mick was a transport manager of dangerous muck away lorries near the Blackwall Tunnel. I drove the Transit up to his portacabin door and from the van's side door the crew and Lynn could walk straight into his office. By the time I got in, the sound man was flying round the room as Mick grabbed the camera after throwing a pint of milk then a cup of tea at the cameraman, who now looked like the android in Aliens, covered in white milk. The sound man was still connected to the camera by the umbilical cord hence revolving around the room like a scene from the Exorcist. So I extracted the £25,000 camera from the guiness enhanced gut of the transport manager and gave it back to the besodden cameraman with the red recording light still illuminated. Mick then locked us IN his office as he waddled down the yard to get his drivers. Discretion now being the better part of valour, I kicked the door out and we all jumped into the Transit only for 2 lorries to bear down on us. Fortunately I can drive, fast and nippy. In fact I drove all the time because we always had to get somewhere in no time at all. Like Inverness airport 40 miles away in 40 minutes to catch the plane... and we did. So foot down I headed straight for the oncoming truck just as the one from the side missed us by inches in my acceleration, then at the last second I swung the transit hard left and then hard right and swerved round the oncoming truck, like a warship evades an Exocet missile, phew. So while the others stayed in a corner cafe, the cameraman came in my car and stood through the sunshine roof as we returned to the yard in a hired XR3i, a bit nippier to deal with any nasty lorry drivers, just to get some more footage and Mick shaking his fist through his office window. Those were the days my friend, they don't make them like they used to you know, when it was trouble up mill and tough at the bottom.
Last but not least for this chapter, I must narrate something slightly different but its not time for something completely different you will be glad to know.
Mike Embley was the reporter, the vegetarian that kept 450 passengers including me waiting on a Boston Runway in a 747 because he could not find any plums to eat for the flight. On the Wednesday I took a call in the Watchdog Office from an elderly man on holiday in Spain. He was complaining of the dreadful accommodation Airtours had put him and a lot of other old age pensioners during a winter break. That Friday we were on the way to the Costa Almeria and started filming that night. The pensioners had been put into a dump of an accommodation self catering block of apartments, next to a building site. So their walls were covered in mould, the swimming pool was green and dirty. The restaurant and dance hall had been demolished. All this we filmed, but we also decided to film a send up of the Airtours glossy brochure, including the facilities, with Mike reading from the brochure like a kitchen space for entertaining which in fact was not a kitchen but a cupboard with a fridge that did not work. Then Mike danced amongst the rubble of the former restaurant and dance hall, it was a real hoot. The next morning we doorstepped the local Airtours Office that had ignored the complaints for the last 3 weeks. The poor girl in charge telephoned Lancashire Head Quarters to tell them there was a BBC Watchdog film crew in their office and some disgruntled holiday makers and what should she do. You should have heard the gasp from the other end of the telephone line, I thought they guy had taken his last breath..."you got Watchdog, there, in your office, expletive deletive !!!!" "Get those people out of those apartments, just do it now whatever it takes do it now". And that is what happened,a happy ending. I got the Power, those poor people ignored for all that time, suddenly they have to pack their suit cases and board the coach to take them to the best 5* hotel in town at No extra charge. Next morning as we say our farewells we film their champagne breakfast, my hand nearly fell off it was shaken in gratitude by so many. I got the Power.....
I've got the power
He could break my heart
He could break my heaa-aa--art
He could break my heart
He could break my heaa-aa--art
He's got the power oh-oh-oh-oh
Why, because it was obvious to me that naming and shaming had more impact than the courts of the land. I sad indictment, but true,
So life at Lime Grove Shepherds Bush in the mid 80's in the days of Breakfast TV and Thats Life. Room 601 right at the top, overcrowded but what harmony amongst a team all wanting to do well, all wanting Watchdog to be a success. A fantastic camaraderie, Watchdog had been a slot in Nationwide and when I joined it was beginning a life on its own, a programme in it's own right against the wishes of Esther Ranzen on That's Life, consumer competition.
I remember Kevin Sutcliffe joining. Nick Hayes. the editor, used to ask me to look after the new recruits. So Kevein was under my wing for a while. Lovely lad, from Blackpool so he spoke funny, and always dressed as a rocker, but had no motorbike and no crash helmet, so was past the sell by date by 20 years for no real reason of transport, he used the bus and the tube.
Kevin walked with me to a bakers in Goldhawk Road Shepherds Bush one lunch time, and asked the lady behind the counter for barn cakes, do what she said, I was in hysterics as Kevin tried to explain, so I acted as translator for my colleague, excuse him luv I said, he's from Blackpool. On the way back munching his jam doughnut I explained to Kevin that barn cakes in London meant you were mad. loopy, as opposed to a kind of oat biscuit. A nation divided by a common language. But Kev took it well. We were soon driving up to Manchester to make some enquiries about a story and as we passed Watford Gap Services on the M1 Kev said to me "Right from now on I do the talking, 'cos they won't bloody understand you".
Which is not untrue. I remember Steve Rose coming up to a Birmingham Pub once where I had tracked down some roofers who preyed on the elderly. You know the sort that drive round, look for a house that has all the signs of an old person living in. Then knocking on the door and frightening the old folk into parting with £150 to fix a loose roof tile which was not loose in the first place. Of course the old trusted the con artist and had to take his word for it, and could not see for themselves. "Better get it fixed luv quick , if it falls and hits someone you will be liable, and it is leaking now, haven't you noticed it". Some of these cowboy builders would even rin the old dear down to the Post Office to cash the giro.
Anyway on the basis of 3 letters of a number plate I found a roofers van matching a description parked in a Pub Car Park. So I then traced where the driver lived and the film crew would turn up the next morning to doorstep the Roofer and his boss. But during our observations in the pub, surveillance and blending in with the customers, some young girl came up to Steve and said "I know you , you're from the Cup Shop", Steve's face contorted as he could not understand a word she was saying, and again I was in hysterics, knowing that the girl thought the pub was going to be raided for under age drinking by the force from the cop shop.
The doorstep, well after a night in the Holiday Inn, no expense spared on these productions, it was snowing. So I said to Lynn Faulds Wood, put a scarf on to hide her hair knock on the roofer's front door and pretend she was new in the neighbourhood, but the snow has caused a collapse of a section of her roof. Meanwhile the film crew and I hid behind a hedge in some one's front garden. Why people don't come out and say oi amazes me, must be everyday they have a film crew squatting in their front garden. So matey buys hook line and sinker the damsel in distress story and as he and Lynn walk past the garden, up pops a cameraman and a sound man like a jack in a box and Lynn whips off her scarf to confront the rogue.
Wow, we used to laugh. We were the good guys and when you saw the eyes of the bad guys and their jaw hit the deck, well that was justice and comeback for their misdeeds. It gave me a real buzz. I had 3 priorities, we had to capture on camera the villains face, if he spoke that was better, if he engaged in an interview even better. But numero uno was his face on camera. The tricks we used to get up to to get them out of their houses or lay in wait at their offices. Of course the viewer never saw what the camera crew were up to laying in wait to turn the tables on the villain. All they saw was a street interview confrontation and the villain legging it slip sliding in the snow. Nor could we laugh until it was all over, so it was bite the lip, but it still makes me burst out laughing today when I think of what we did. The film crews loved it, they knew all the background work had been done, that a plan had been made and that justice was on their side. Those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end, we did sing and dance for ever and a day.
John form Kingston was a freelance stills cameraman that I often employed, for these tricky confrontations, he could take stills as back up for the moving camera. We did a lot together, even a couple of car chases in East London and up the M11. He was there when the customers of a cheap furniture retailer went bust, a group of them came up to me and said get your cameras rolling and watch this..... and they stormed the stage at the creditors meeting and beat up the delinquent directors.
But the best one was when we asked a road sweeper to borrow his donkey jacket and his road sweeping lorry in exchange for a cup of tea and egg on toast in the corner cafe. The plan then was for John with LB of Hounslow Donkey Jacket to knock on the door and say "Is that your car mate, we are doing road sweeping, with a mechanical road sweeper, can you move your car for a minute. Of course the crook comes out to move the brand new black Mercedes and hey presto guess whose on the road sweeping machine, its the BBC film crew, by jove, and you sir are a crook and a swindler.
Scuffles there were, mainly the cameraman got the attention 1st. Part of my Producer Director job was to protect him and the rest of the crew. hence I got the nick name Big Al. There was one job, a Mock Auction, where I asked for volunteers to film the event. I took a late call that this auction was happening that evening. It's illegal, but it's the sort of sale where the auctioneer shows something really good, they have stooges in the audience who pretend to but it. Everyone else ums and ars and wants a slice of the action and of course they get boxed and wrapped up tatty junk for their money. I was in the auction using a hidden camera and sound equipment and on my cue the film crew and Sarah the reporter were to come into the hall to confront the gang. So at the end of the sale I spoke into my microphone and in came the crew and suddenly their was a pitched battle. I had bullet proof Stevens as the cameraman, he had filmed in Vietnam hence the nickname and he was a big lad. 26 seconds he had hold of his camera, before it went airborne all filmed on my hidden camera in a bag, which I had to hand over to another crew member, so as I could wade into the gang attacking my crew, meanwhile Sarah who for vanity reasons never wore her glasses when filming, walked up to the auctioneer in bliss full ignorance of all hell letting loose in her wake. So the commentary went as such "The man in the black leather jacket squaring up and engaging in fisty cuffs with the gang is in fact our producer protecting the crew, and he uses himself as a barrier to stop the gang from shutting the doors as he shouts out and calls to me, so I can run and make my escape before the doors slam shut...bang".
It does bring a whole new meaning to "as seen on television". Those were the days and nights my friend, we thought they would never end.
Most of the time the crooks who were caught out let off steam, rant and swear, just occasionally it got really nasty. Lynn got 5 yards away from me once. We were at Ron Aylwards Cheshire mansion. He was the home improvement entrepreneur, whose Sunday Times Magazine glossy advertisements offered much, solar panels, the answer to flat roof leaks, a new prestigious driveway, luxurious central heating. Trouble was with Ron Aylward the only home he improved was his own. Every time the game was up, he would fold the latest venture and a phoenix operation would rise from the ashes fo the last. For instance his central heating was a series of electric fires plugged into a hole made in partition walls. Anyway Lynn got 5 yards away from me and Mrs Aylward lashed out with a dog chain right round Lynn's face as the camera rolled.
Another time 28 stone Mick was a transport manager of dangerous muck away lorries near the Blackwall Tunnel. I drove the Transit up to his portacabin door and from the van's side door the crew and Lynn could walk straight into his office. By the time I got in, the sound man was flying round the room as Mick grabbed the camera after throwing a pint of milk then a cup of tea at the cameraman, who now looked like the android in Aliens, covered in white milk. The sound man was still connected to the camera by the umbilical cord hence revolving around the room like a scene from the Exorcist. So I extracted the £25,000 camera from the guiness enhanced gut of the transport manager and gave it back to the besodden cameraman with the red recording light still illuminated. Mick then locked us IN his office as he waddled down the yard to get his drivers. Discretion now being the better part of valour, I kicked the door out and we all jumped into the Transit only for 2 lorries to bear down on us. Fortunately I can drive, fast and nippy. In fact I drove all the time because we always had to get somewhere in no time at all. Like Inverness airport 40 miles away in 40 minutes to catch the plane... and we did. So foot down I headed straight for the oncoming truck just as the one from the side missed us by inches in my acceleration, then at the last second I swung the transit hard left and then hard right and swerved round the oncoming truck, like a warship evades an Exocet missile, phew. So while the others stayed in a corner cafe, the cameraman came in my car and stood through the sunshine roof as we returned to the yard in a hired XR3i, a bit nippier to deal with any nasty lorry drivers, just to get some more footage and Mick shaking his fist through his office window. Those were the days my friend, they don't make them like they used to you know, when it was trouble up mill and tough at the bottom.
Last but not least for this chapter, I must narrate something slightly different but its not time for something completely different you will be glad to know.
Mike Embley was the reporter, the vegetarian that kept 450 passengers including me waiting on a Boston Runway in a 747 because he could not find any plums to eat for the flight. On the Wednesday I took a call in the Watchdog Office from an elderly man on holiday in Spain. He was complaining of the dreadful accommodation Airtours had put him and a lot of other old age pensioners during a winter break. That Friday we were on the way to the Costa Almeria and started filming that night. The pensioners had been put into a dump of an accommodation self catering block of apartments, next to a building site. So their walls were covered in mould, the swimming pool was green and dirty. The restaurant and dance hall had been demolished. All this we filmed, but we also decided to film a send up of the Airtours glossy brochure, including the facilities, with Mike reading from the brochure like a kitchen space for entertaining which in fact was not a kitchen but a cupboard with a fridge that did not work. Then Mike danced amongst the rubble of the former restaurant and dance hall, it was a real hoot. The next morning we doorstepped the local Airtours Office that had ignored the complaints for the last 3 weeks. The poor girl in charge telephoned Lancashire Head Quarters to tell them there was a BBC Watchdog film crew in their office and some disgruntled holiday makers and what should she do. You should have heard the gasp from the other end of the telephone line, I thought they guy had taken his last breath..."you got Watchdog, there, in your office, expletive deletive !!!!" "Get those people out of those apartments, just do it now whatever it takes do it now". And that is what happened,a happy ending. I got the Power, those poor people ignored for all that time, suddenly they have to pack their suit cases and board the coach to take them to the best 5* hotel in town at No extra charge. Next morning as we say our farewells we film their champagne breakfast, my hand nearly fell off it was shaken in gratitude by so many. I got the Power.....
I've got the power
He could break my heart
He could break my heaa-aa--art
He could break my heart
He could break my heaa-aa--art
He's got the power oh-oh-oh-oh
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