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.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)