I’ve lost all respect for Robin van Persie – and so have a lot of other Arsenal supporters, judging from the boos during pre-season friendlies.
In spite of what van Persie is claiming, in the end it all comes down to money and greed with these footballers who make ridiculous claims when they leave clubs and join others.
There is no way that what Arsene Wenger wants in terms of silverware is any different to what van Persie wants. It’s just that van Persie is like a spoiled child, who just wants it now – at any cost.
He could have tried to help Arsenal obtain silverware. Instead, he’s gone where the grass looks greener (or whatever colour the bank notes are).
Well, today’s the day A Level results come out, so we’d better get ready for the inevitable news that children are a million times more intelligent than they were this time last year – in spite of the obvious realities of that.
Evolution works very quickly as far as the media is concerned. Even this report ahead of the results can’t hide the fact that they are – and have been – manipulated for some time.
EDIT: I stand corrected. They’re 0.4% less intelligent than last year.
But I also heard on the radio that the lovey-dovey “everyone’s a winner” brigade are claiming everyone did well, and that results are deliberately lower.
It is a pay-as-you-go system, so learners can use it to get private practice in between lessons. I also suspect it will get a few people hot under the collar, since the “Red” part of the name is… yes, Red Driving School.
In the example given, a typical 17-year old learning in a Nissan Micra could add the equivalent of £500 plus per month to the parent’s insurance (in my experience it is nowhere near as much as this), whereas this separate policy just costs just £85.50.
I’d still advise shopping around – when I was training to be an instructor (it was a long time ago, I have to admit) my own insurance was costing me about £25 a month. Adding a 17-year old female to the policy took it up to £80 a month. It’s quite possible that this kind of mark-up is still obtainable – not everyone lives in Kensington and uses the most expensive insurer on the planet, as many “typical” examples seem to suggest.
Indeed, the so-called “average” premiums being touted by the national press are massively greater than any my pupils get quoted.
Yep. Someone found the blog on precisely that search term.
I think whoever asked it really needs to stand in front of a mirror and take a long, hard look. Then maybe they’ll start to realise just where the real problems actually are.
There’s nothing wrong with most driving examiners – but there’s a lot wrong with how some people react to the simple fact that they are examiners.
Too many precious little darlings these days have been brought up to expect everything to be easy. Their education has been dumbed down so that they can’t fail.
Mummy and daddy have probably bought them anything they have ever asked for – including all their driving lessons. In many cases, there’s even a brand, spanking new Corsa with blacked out windows and wide exhaust pipe waiting on the drive as a “birthday present”. So it’s hardly surprising that the blame for failing their driving test should fall on the examiner and not themselves.
You fail your test if you aren’t good enough on the day. Period.
It won’t have escaped many people’s attention that Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France on Sunday – the first British cyclist ever to achieve that. Obviously, he’s a superb sportsman and is fully deserving of his title. But that’s Bradley Wiggins…
However, what people may not realise is the sudden spawning of a million wannabe-Bradleys who haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. The number of ageing Spandex boys out on the roads yesterday was dramatically greater than usual. And it has carried over into today.
I’m not talking about people on normal bikes – though they’re bad enough. I’m talking full-on, 5mm wide wheels, Zentai-suited, stupid hat… the lot.
From 9am this morning until 8pm tonight the roads were full of them – and during the rush hour the idiots were using main roads instead of the cycle routes that the councils have spent millions on for them.
Bradley Wiggins apparently has only 4% body fat. The wannabes have only 4% of the intelligence of other baboons, as they attempt to take drinks from their frame-mounted bottles on narrow country roads, wobbling all over as cars held up behind try to get past, or slowing down to stop and investigate some “mechanical problem” in the middle of a busy light-controlled crossroads. And those are two real examples that I witnessed today.
Many of them were riding home from work at that time, I would imagine. You can just guess at how clever they thought themselves as they donned their Spiderman suits to look like Bradley and walked past all the secretaries in the office. And all the secretaries going “look at that prat” under their breath to each other.
Because they ARE prats. Most of them KNOW they are in the way of traffic, and they STAY in the way deliberately. The ones that DON’T know are just a danger to themselves and all around them.
The BBC is wetting its britches over Bradley’s triumph. I don’t think they’ve mentioned cycling more than a handful of times since the last Olympics, but since it became clear that the Tour de France title was won they haven’t shut up about it. This morning, even they started on about the wannabes – apparently they’re known as MAMLs – Middle Aged Men in Lycra – so I’m not the only one to have noticed this copycat behaviour (though I did observe it as long ago as March 2010).
Any motorists reading: be warned. If you hit one of the idiots you’ll get the book thrown at you. So be careful.
Update: Congratulations obviously go to Bradley for his Olympic gold medal today (1 August 2012) – but again, there was a noticeable increase in non-aerodynamic spandex-clad wallies weaving all over the roads this evening. And the hits on this particular post have also skyrocketed.
There’s obviously a lot of wannabe Bradleys out there getting ready to head on out…
I heard on the radio yesterday that PCS – the bunch of bananas responsible for the frequent driving examiner strikes over the last 18 months – has “joined” Aslef (the train drivers’ union) in deliberately orchestrating strikes (confirmation here) during the Olympics.
Can you imagine the kind of petty and ignorant minds required for this kind of deliberate disruption?
That question becomes more significant when you bear in mind that no more than 1 in 10 members voted for strikes. The call is purely down to PCS – an organisation which we know has nothing better to do than attempt to destroy the country.
Aslef – another throwback to the 70s – has already announced that IT is calling strikes during the Olympics.
So, UK Border staff and the train drivers are going on strike – at a time when loads of foreign visitors will be arriving for the Olympics and will want to travel while they are here. Sheer class.
The sooner unions are outlawed, the better our chances for improving national prosperity.
Of course, unions will never be banned outright. But let’s just hope that their “power” continues to decline, as it has done since the 70s. I know one thing, though. Once their power reaches absolute rock bottom, it’ll join any respect the nation holds for them.
They are a complete joke.
Footnote: The fact that the imbeciles called it off the day before the Olympics is irrelevant. Everyone out there should see them for what they are. They only called off the strike because they were offered a pound of flesh by a desperate government. It doesn’t alter what they are one bit.
And don’t think it will stop examiner strikes after the Olympics. The pound of flesh was only for the border staff.
The articles Giant Rats and Giant Rats: II have been quite popular since I published them. Every now and then I get a run of people looking for them. People searching for “huge rats” or something similar is the usual way they end up here.
This story from a couple of months ago now reveals another one found up in County Durham. And it should come as no surprise whatsoever that the grainy photo on the left is the only evidence of this astounding and dramatic find.
To any normal person – me, for example – finding and killing a “rat” (the most reviled animal on the planet) which was as tall as me and trying to steel my tractor, and which had just broken down the barn doors and ripped off the Crook-Lok with one paw, would lead to calling at least one of the local authorities and possibly a wildlife outfit immediately. Hell, I’d probably call the Army! And Nick Pope.
And if ever I DO kill a rat or find something dead in the garden that the cats have had, it goes in the wheelie bin (assuming it will fit, of course:giant rats tend to be, well… giant, and my cats are listed in The Book Of Revelation – nos. 664 and 665, I think). What I don’t do is drive out somewhere remote, bury it, and then tell everyone I forgot where I put it, but that it was bigger than a Land Rover.
Not so with any of the people in the places where these “rats” are found. unfortunately. Standard practice there appears to be to take ONE grainy picture on your mobile phone, bury the corpse in an undisclosed location, then start shooting your mouth off to the national media about how giant rats are making your life a misery, with their loud music and other antisocial tendencies.
Incidentally, what led me to find this new story and write this updated article was the fact that on BBC Breakfast (this is story IV) they were rattling on about the wet summer leading to an explosion in the rat population, with the suggestion that they are also “bigger” than normal. So we can look out for more on this topic in the coming months, I suspect.
A rant! I missed this last week, which is good – because I would probably have blown a fuse if I’d have seen it. I’ll have to make sure I miss the second episode as well.
Breakfast TV was rattling on about it today, and it concerns an American idea involving parents taking their babies into work. The very idea has me frothing at the mouth even now! It’s absolutely stupid, and could really only come from America.
The story seems to have started over a year ago. In America they have a very confusing situation. On the one hand, most states do not offer paid maternity leave, and for that they are to be applauded and congratulated. But it seems that some American companies consequently allow employees to take their sprogs into work so as to avoid child-minding costs. Which is nuts.
But now, some complete jackass over here has latched on to it.
Let’s just get a few things straight about babies:
they shit
they puke
they get sick
they scream and cry
they misbehave
Absolutely NOTHING about babies is conducive to improved work efficiency. When you add to this the fact that the average female’s brain shrinks to a quarter of its original size and her IQ falls by at least 50 points the instant she gets pregnant, and stays that way permanently, taking babies into the office is just a different way of wasting money. Wasting MORE money, in fact, because we still have those idiotic maternity leave arrangements in place. Oh, and don’t forget that we now have paternity arrangements, too.
When I was in the rat race people used to calculate how much they could make from maternity leave. There was never a chance of them not taking all of it – they’d take it as far as they could, which shows just how they felt about their jobs. Then when they returned, they’d only be part-time, and this would last for the next 16 years as they skipped off early or came in late due to school open days, school concerts, parent/teacher evenings, board of governors’ meetings, school holidays, and anything else they could concoct. Their jobs – and the customers they dealt with – were secondary to them at all times.
There is absolutely no way even those not directly affected by mummyhood can work normally if they’re forced to endure these idiots’ babies in the office or workplace. And no company can run at maximum efficiency if it has to accommodate any form or maternity or paternity issue.
If I phone up someone and end up on a call centre switchboard, absolutely the last thing I want to hear when I’m trying to sort out why that cheque for £7,000 hasn’t been credited yet, or why my direct debit was returned when funds were available, or why I’ve received a letter telling me I haven’t paid a bill when I have, is someone’s brat screaming in the background. At the very least, I will know that the person I am talking to doesn’t give a shit about my problem because her attention is on her sprog!
When I worked on a call centre myself (when I was training to be an instructor), customers who phoned us came from all walks of life. The worst ones were that class of “unfit parent” who – for some unfathomable reason – will happily phone a support line which will require some detailed technical exchanges, but allow their kids to run riot in the background. I can’t hear what they’re saying, and they aren’t listening to what I’m saying. It’s as simple as that.
I can also remember occasions when – after giving birth – the “proud mother” would bring her child into the office to show it to everyone. I can recall at least two occasions when I had to explain to important American clients that that’s why they could hear screaming babies in the background! I’m pretty sure they didn’t automatically assume that their £50,000 projects would be better quality as a result.
Maternity (and paternity) leave are a major contributing factor to poor country-wide business performance during this time of recession. They’re an absolute waste of money. But it is the ethic behind them which is the real killer, and letting people take kids to work is just making it worse.
I’ve mentioned before how the car parks in West Bridgford seem to attract people with all the social conscience of a dog on a croquet lawn. If it’s not old people blocking the entire car park whilst waiting by the entrance (in the Nursery Car Park) to avoid having to actually park and buy a ticket, it’s women waiting for someone to vacate a space near to the pedestrian exit instead of driving around the other side to where all the empty spaces are. And don’t get me started on women with children who – when there is a queue for the ticket machine – lift their 4-year old darling up to put the money in (in small change) and press the button. It’s like a day out for some of them.
I went in mid-afternoon a couple of days ago to go to the bank. There was only one free space, and this was it. In the bay the other side was a Porsche – he was parked properly, but Porsches are quite wide, so he came close to the line. The idiot in the green Focus (reg. no. FG04 KJK) had left their car like this with people queuing to get in!
Now, I could have just squeezed into the space. But then I would have had to get out without my door hitting the Porsche (if I parked forwards) or this clown’s car if I reversed. And then there was the likelihood of this idiot having kids who would gladly fling the door into the side of my car (or maybe mummy just do it herself out of spite). Whoever was driving couldn’t possibly have got into their car if I’d have parked next to them.
There was a ticket inspector doing the rounds. They used to take photos of this sort of thing and issue penalty charges. I hope they still do.
Fortunately, as I drove round the back to leave someone left at that precise moment and I managed to get a place. When I came back I watched an old woman drive partially into and out of another space at least four times while traffic queued out of the entrance. Some days it’s like a geriatric Day Of The Dead movie in that car park.
I’ve written about this before, but we’re due an update since things have got much worse since that last article.
Let me just summarise an important detail here: trams might be politically correct as a form of transport, capable of making the average council employee wet their pants at the mere mention of them, but they are definitely not a green form of transport.
Nottingham’s existing tram is an utter joke. It’s been shoehorned into a place where there isn’t room for it in order to link the kinds of places which have a police helicopter hovering permanently above them to the City Centre. In Basford, for example, it runs alongside a railway line, and if you catch it right you can be waiting for ages (my current personal best is over 40 minutes) just to travel a few hundred metres.
The existing network is known as Phase I. Phase II began several months ago and was flagged in advance by the usual “Expect Delays” signs erected by the jubilant council and contract workers. The first of these appeared along University Boulevard ahead of cutting down most of the trees.
Since then, University Boulevard has become Hell On Earth every single night of the week. You see, it is a two-lane road, and it is one of only two ways of getting out towards Bramcote and Long Eaton short of testing cosmology theory to the max! But the complete imbeciles responsible for the tram – both council and contractor – have somehow been allowed to close one lane off, and all the traffic now has to get through using just one lane. Incredibly, this state of affairs has been operating since the beginning of June, and given that the workmen apparently working there are only visible for about 4 hours a day (and only on weekdays) there is no obvious end to the chaos.
It is even more unbelievable that the police have allowed it to continue. If I created tailbacks that long every night of the week I’d be committing a criminal offence, and I can’t see how it should be any different for those idiots who have authorised all of this.
The photo above shows the area affected. The far lane you can see is closed with large concrete blocks and the gap in the central; reservation is also coned off. If people need to get into the Hockey Club entrance you can see over the other side, they have to go to the next set of lights and turn round (the sign says “Hockey Club open as usual”, or something similar, but the extra 30 minutes it can take to get into it is far from “usual”).
The most frightening thing of all is that they could easily have flattened the central reservation and made a contraflow system to keep two lanes open. But they didn’t. That’s because they are – as I have already said – complete idiots.
But now the situation is getting much worse. You see, Phase II is going to take the tram to all the rough areas in Nottingham that Phase I missed. For several months there have been “Expect Delays” signs in Beeston, Long Eaton, parts of the City, and Clifton, and they’ve been busy clearing greenbelt and other land and turning it into muddy waste (during the bird nesting season, I hasten to add – all normal rules and regulations appear to be suspended when the project has “tram” in it).
Over the last two weeks it has become virtually impossible to bypass University Boulevard by going through Beeston and Chilwell because they have now begun work in those places (cutting off lanes and erecting “3-way lights”).
This week, work began on Haydn Road in the City, and that means huge delays if you try to go that way, and huge delays if you try to bypass it (because everyone else is trying to do the same). On Friday I got into the queue on Haydn Road, realised my mistake, then got stuck in another queue of people trying to avoid it in Hyson Green. ( EDIT: I take this one back – for a while, at least. They haven’t started roadworks there yet, so it must have been some other problem that I encountered this week. However, the warning signs say National Grid start work there on 23 July for up to 12 weeks – in normal-speak that means 15 weeks or more. )
Also this week, part of Southchurch Drive in Clifton is closed off with “3-way lights” in place.
They – that is, the council and the contractor involved – are not “sorry for any inconvenience” they cause. It is deliberate and they relish having caused it. They have made no attempt whatsoever to avoid any of it.
Nottingham is rapidly moving towards a total evening gridlock situation, and it is all the fault of the Council.
Yep. Someone found the blog on precisely that search term.
However, what people may not realise is the sudden spawning of a million wannabe-Bradleys who haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. The number of ageing Spandex boys out on the roads yesterday was dramatically greater than usual. And it has carried over into today.
out it. This morning, even they started on about the wannabes – apparently they’re known as MAMLs – Middle Aged Men in Lycra – so I’m not the only one to have noticed this copycat behaviour (though I did observe it 
The existing network is known as Phase I. Phase II began several months ago and was flagged in advance by the usual “Expect Delays” signs erected by the jubilant council and contract workers. The first of these appeared along University Boulevard ahead of cutting down most of the trees.