I was made redundant back in July of this year, but I needn’t have worried for it seems I have been gainfully employed all this time.
What do I do and who do I do it for?
Well it seems I work for the City Council Refuse Department. I sort out my domestic rubbish, grade it, clean it and deliver it to them.
The reason I hadn’t realised I was in their employ is because every other job I’ve had since I left school has resulted in a certain pecuniary advantage with the flow going from my employer to me. This one is quite radical in so much as after I put the hours in I then pay them in the order of around £100 a month. Could become popular I think.
Still I have a job description and targets to meet. They furnished me with 3 massive plastic bins and clear instructions on what goes where, when it goes there and threats if I get it wrong.

This is all in the name of saving the planet. When I was a child a dustbin man came into your back garden, hoisted your bin on his shoulder carried it outside and dumped it in the back of his wagon. This was then taken to a field full of seagulls who picked over it and what was left was burnt and turned into the soil. It seems ash is a great fertiliser and is popular amongst farmer types.
However this produced too much Co2 so now we put everything into one of three bins which are emptied separately into one of three different lorries the paper and plastics are then driven to the other end of the country or in some cases it seems China may even have a part to play. I bet that doesn’t create Co2 or cost money do you?

Talking of expense, part of my Council job description clearly states that I have to wash my metal, glass and plastic rubbish before disposing of it. Good job hot water and soap are free, that’s all I can say! Wouldn’t it be ironic if heating water created Co2, I guess it doesn’t. Still it’ll be cheaper from now on as the paper labels on the jam jars have flaked off and seized up the pump on our dishwasher so that’s not an option any more; do you expect the council will pay to have it mended? Yes so do I.

Whilst I am waiting for that I can’t help asking myself …….
“What the fuck am I doing standing at the sink washing my rubbish?”

Hemel Hempstead has for many years reveled in the ownership of the maddest traffic roundabout ever to have succeeded in making the transition from drawing board to reality. It consists of one giant roundabout which has two way traffic (yes you read correctly) and mini satellite roundabouts at each junction with it. So to join this roundabout you have to first go round a smaller one!!!! The road signs alerting you to this joy are something to behold and wouldn’t look out of place at the entrance to a theme park for crop circles.
Check out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempstead)

What boggles my mind is the ease at which something as nightmarishly out of the ordinary as this is allowed to get past the planners when we all know the lengths of bureaucracy we lesser tax paying mortals have to negotiate in order to stick a conservatory on the back end of our own house. Rumour has it that there are people still travelling around this monstrosity since the day it opened too scared to steer across oncoming traffic in order to exit.

Here in Coventry we have gone in quite a different direction when it comes to winding up the motorist, we have traffic lights on our roundabouts. I don’t believe for one moment that the Trolls in The Council House have thought this one up on their own, they haven’t an ounce of originality between them. One of them one day visited a concrete public toilet somewhere and voila Coventry City Centre was reborn. However the programming of the said lights is a master stroke. As the one you are sitting at turns green the next one ahead of you turns red and so the pattern is set. There is one roundabout in particular at the junction of the Stoney Stanton Rd and the A444 that has four sets of bloody lights on it!…….. each displaying red immediately after you’ve been graced with a green thus allowing you to move 20 yards before having to stop again …What the hell is that all about?
Traffic lights are to control traffic where there is no other method in use usually T junctions and crossroads, a roundabout has one purpose and that is to allow vehicles to merge and join the flow with the minimum of obstruction, what feeble minded git thought it would be a good idea to use them both at the same time?
For goodness sake we don’t see Zebra Crossings or Give Way to the Right signs half way round roundabouts do we? …………. Although now I’ve sowed the seed of thought it’s only a matter of time I suppose.

POST SCRIPT …….. Despite careful research before reporting on the roundabout at Hemel Hempstead it seems that the reality is even sillier than I could have imagined. It appears that this is not the original, it is in fact the protoge as the original built to this design resides in Tamworth. God help us all.

Just over thirty years and three wives ago I bought my second boat. It was a 20 ft. marine ply cruiser. Built by Brooklands Aviation The Dolphin was an immensely pretty little boat and rumour had it that they were built from the packing cases that aircraft engines arrived in. Mine had seen better days but was my pride and joy; I didn’t mind the crazed perspex windows they were far too tricky to replace, but the pram canopy over the cockpit was in tatters.

In those days in Coventry every third person worked in one of the many car factories so finding the skills required in order to repair or replace a bit of canvas was not difficult. A card in the local newsagents window offering folding pictures of the queen in exchange for a new hood on my boat soon produced an expert who did it for a living at The Jaguar, seems he made them for E Types and claimed he could knock one up in his lunch hours. I asked him what kind of material I should get him only to be told not to bother there’d be plenty of off-cuts laying around. No wonder British Leyland were sliding down the pan.

Once “Emma” had her nice new canopy fitted I started to look round for other gadgets and accessories I could bolt on to make her look special. I had already fitted a pulpit and navigation lights and was rather keen on one of those new fangled gas leak detectors that were being raved about in Waterways World. I had already seen the wreckage caused by a gas leak on more than one occasion, there were the remains of a plastic cruiser just South of Braunston Tunnel which had melted to the waterline. Thank goodness it hadn’t gone off inside the tunnel otherwise he’d have exited from the Northern portal with enough velocity to skim his way down the flight of locks non stop. Then there was the strange looking narrow boat that now resembled a cigar tube due to a gas bottle going off inside. Seems the owner was resting on the porta potti at the time and ended up admiring his boat from twenty foot up after ascending through a hatch cover with his trousers round his ankles. Yes a gas leak detector was for me, my boat only had ten feet of cabin and a two ring burner stove, but I wasn’t going to be caught out.

Now in the late seventies there was only one place in Warwickshire to go for chandlery and that was Nautocraft, Boot Wharf, Nuneaton their shop was like an Aladdin’s cave, if you needed something they would happily convince you there was an alternative which they had in stock which would almost do the job and only cost oodles more. It was run by an interesting couple who played an interesting game, no matter what you were buying they wanted to go outside and see your boat, or if you came by car then a photo of it. It was a while before I realised they were assessing how wealthy you were before deciding the price of whatever gem you were trying to buy from them.

So one Saturday we yanked the outboard into life and putted our way up the Coventry canal to see what was what at Nautocaft. I rummaged around their shelves and boxes and started to despair that I was out of luck (they never pounced on you but always gave you time to stumble across treasures). Only when there was a danger of you escaping without purchasing did they block the doorway and enquire as to your heart’s delight. I described the little plastic box of tricks I’d read about and enquired if they had any. I was treated to stroking of chins and much sucking of teeth before being reliably informed that I didn’t want one of those, it wasn’t my fault of course how was I to know they were made in Taiwan and only worked on Asian gas? No! what I needed was a good old made in England piece of kit like this………
He reached up to a shelf and carefully lowered something for my perusal. Cradled lovingly in his hands and peering out from a wrapping of greasy paper was what looked like the trumpet end of a klaxon horn a cardboard tag described it as MOD 674245/A2 and there were two wires each the thickness of my finger protruding from the back of it. Best of all it was made of brass! I had to have it, I could immediately hear the “oohs” and “aahs” of envy from all that would espy it.
“wha…. whuu … howzit….. duzit … then?”
I technically enquired. He ignored my question and suggested we pop outside and look at my boat to make sure it would fit.
“What a lovely boat!” He enthused “So characterful you must be very proud of it?” I followed his gaze, he was admiring somebody’s home made conversion of an ex army pontoon that was listing badly. I pointed at Emma “No,this one’s mine” I corrected. “Oh even better yours has windows” he enthused.
I reworded my question and he explained it was a gas sniffer the open end of the trumpet would reside in the bilges and constantly check for gas. I pointed out it was eight inches high and my bilges were only two inches deep. “That’s an advantage isn’t it?” He confirmed, I nodded in agreement, he really knew his stuff.
I asked him what voltage it ran on, he countered by asking what voltage I had. I told him twelve he assured me that although it preferred thirty-six he was sure it would do its best. He’d even throw in a tin of Brasso to keep it shiny. He gave me a number which I thought was his phone, but turned out to be the price and I heard my self say “I’ll have it”
After I’d paid and was about to go back to the boat he enquired if I would be interested in buying the control unit for it, it seemed all I had bought was the sniffing end and there was also the box that made it all work. I did a double take this was no flimsy plastic tupperware affair, he was holding an enameled instrument case on a mahogany plinth with chrome switches, glass coloured lights and a big brass bell on the top, was I interested? Was the pope a Cadillac?

We left Nuneaton penniless but happy, the rest of the weekend spent cutting a hole in the cabin floor and mounting the control box in the cockpit.

A fortnight later and we were preparing for our annual holiday, this year we had planned to do the Oxford Canal from its start at Hawkesbury Junction all the way down to Oxford, and we had chosen the wettest July to do it in. We left our moorings on the Coventry and got to Hawkesbury without any let up in the weather, the pub at the junction looked very inviting so we went in to dry out and have some lunch. We were on our second pint of lunch when one of the regulars turned up and informed us all that there was a cabin cruiser outside doing a passable impression of a pinball machine. We looked at each other then shot outside, he wasn’t wrong, there sat “Emma” the cockpit alight with flashing red and blue lights and the bell ringing intermittently. Valiantly throwing my wife into the dustbins for her own safety, I selflessly jumped on board expecting to find we’d left a gas tap on, but no! I reset the alarm and it stayed quiet.
“That was a close call” I said. “Thank goodness we left the gas detector on”. I discovered the gas bottle was turned on and decided that we must have leaked some from when we’d made a coffee. By now the occupants of the snug bar were now standing around us.
I grabbed the washing bowl and started bailing the air out of the cabin, their comments didn’t bother me although I did think the bloke who had helped my wife out of the bins had no need to enquire if he could have her seeing as I’d thrown her away.
It had stopped raining so we went on our way and spent that night at Newbold. Next morning was wet and we’d been on the move an hour or so when the alarm went off again, twenty minutes of empty bowl bailing calmed it down but left my nerves in tatters. I hadn’t realised how dangerous this boating hobby was and now had the gas turned off at the bottle whenever we weren’t using it.
The next day however was the worst, the weather was intermittent as we headed for Napton. We’d just gone under a road bridge as an ice cream van went over, the resulting chimes had me grabbing the bowl and into full flight bailing in seconds it was now becoming second nature. For the next hour and a half we clanged and flashed our way along. What amazed us were the numbers of boats we passed with their gas installations intact, didn’t they realise the risks they were taking? Our gas bottle now sat strapped on the bow as far away from us as I could get it and still the cabin was awash with the stuff.

Late that afternoon we tied up at the bottom of the locks, the cooker on the bank and the towpath roped off to keep the public safe, still the alarm rang. We were sitting huddled under a tree trying to keep dry whilst agog at the pockets of gas that were still rising in the cabin when an old colonel sort ambled along walking his spaniel. He stopped by our mooring rope and looked at us, then the bell caught his attention.
Pointing his stick at it he commented “My god a trusty old MF if my eyes and ears don’t deceive me, what are you doing with it?”
I told him I didn’t know what an MF was but that was a gas detector and he shouldn’t hang around because the boat was full of the stuff.
“I suppose you could describe it as a sort of gas detector…” He said and then went on to describe what he called an MF. It seems they used them in the army motor pools where they had pits to work under trucks and the like and there’d be a danger of carbon monoxide poisoning.
“Bloody useless they were!” He told us, apparently they didn’t analyse the air substances but reacted to changes in the air pressure which is why they called them MFs ….Monsoon Forecasters, every time it was going to rain off they’d go.
And there were we going to Oxford in the wettest July since records were a child.

I got to the checkout, and noticed that the metal frame that has the plastic bags hanging from it was not only “bag less” but sported a hastily made notice that muttered on about “in order to encourage customers to recycle….. bags were no longer left out…. but if you really felt the need to use one then ask the colleague blah, blah, sanctimonious waffle”

The girl then challenged me as to how many of my own bags I had equipped myself with?
The conversation went something like this: –

“Young lady I drive a Jaguar 3 litre V6 that does 19 to the gallon, that in itself may indicate how untroubled I am about the rumours concerning the environment, however more importantly; how uncool would it be if I were to be seen exiting from it with a handful of old carrier bags?
She laughed
Considering that my carbon footprint is already the size of Wales do you seriously think I give a jot as to how much slower the planet will spin if I continue to re-use your naff orange shopping bags? Let’s be honest they rarely last long enough to get my shopping half way up the garden path before giving up the ghost completely and unceremoniously depositing a cocktail of Ajax and bananas on my herbaceous borders. There sole purpose has always been as a marketing tool, they tell the world I shop at Sainsbury’s, nothing else.
On the issue of being made to feel guilty and on a par with a baby strangler because I refuse to juggle with my eggs and cauliflower florets as I return to my car; be rest assured that should I ever feel the need to delegate my conscience to a third party I shall choose an expert in matters moralistic and a damn good negotiator to boot. I doubt very much I shall turn to the likes of Sainsbury’s.

My reasons being a distinct lack of honesty in most of its trading tactics. I draw your attention to the sign over there that proudly proclaims that since Sainsbury’s has declined to foister its free orange bags on the customer, enough of them have been saved to go around the world.
I beg your pardon? Since when have your bags been free? There is no such thing in life as free, it is an overhead and as such affects the prices charged. We the customer pay for them, they are not free. Sainsbury’s is merely jumping on the bandwagon to appear honourable and caring when in fact they are saving themselves money whilst slithering around under the guise of being Eco-friendly.

Also I do recycle supermarket bags I tie up my rubbish in them, which is about all they are fit for after transporting something as grotesquely heavy as a bumper bag of crisps or my till receipt. However if I am to be denied access to them I expect Sainsbury’s will be delighted to sell me bin liners, thus providing even more revenue to boot and damn whatever landfill they end up in!

On the question of overheads I see that that your esteemed employer is still sticking up plastic notices everywhere telling us which of their products is the same price as Asda or Tesco. I can only assume that they have found a printer somewhere who does this service for nothing? I doubt it. How about just not bothering and drop the prices to below that of your competitors? That would be a benefit, and could be achieved by counterbalancing the use of the dosh you save through not printing up self congratulatory propaganda which in reality are saying that if these items are the same price as our competitors then everything else not marked must be more expensive!
I expect the plastic you’d save from not chucking all those signs into landfill, for that is where they will surely end up, would also go some distance around the world as well.”

With a big grin on her face she thanked me for shopping at Sainsbury’s and wished me a good day. I told her I didn’t regard any of this as her fault of course, she’s just on the national minimum wage and is following the instructions of some self important suit upstairs. Twats!

Grabbing hold of my four bags I cranked up my voice a couple of notches and expressed an instinct that although the list of things they now have to say to each customer …………..
“Hello….. Would you like help with packing your bag …… Do you have a wotsit card ……. are you collecting vouchers for school ….. would you like a savings stamp …… would you like cash back …… no the card goes in the other way …. please enter your PIN ….. you can remove your card now ….. .
……….has in fact been added to by having to challenge each punter about returning plastic bags.
I was concerned that their personal achievement targets would be even more out of reach as they are also slowed down now by having to constantly reach into the hidden vault in order to allow you yet another bag (one at a time).
I wouldn’t mind betting folding money to a bent tin of tomatoes that nobody has thought of allowing them more time to troll out this mindless waffle let alone what damage is being done to their psyche through this Pavlovian behaviour.
She had to hide her face to laugh I then realised the check out girls either side of her had joined in.

They all said goodbye and waved to me when I left…….

Every now and then the news bubbles with stories of women impregnating themselves with their late husband’s sperm.  Usually the indignation is launched by those who should either keep their noses out (did I mean that?) or accept that their morals and beliefs have no place in the lives of others.

I always (being a simple minded man) drew the conclusion that the man in question had cracked one off the wrist before having a vasectomy, then presented his wife with a receipt from a cryogenic clinic wrapped around a turkey baster.

“Happy Christmas darling, just in case we change our minds or I tap dance my way under a number 14 bus …….. enjoy!”

Then eavesdropping a conversation whilst waiting for a meeting to start at work I was astonished to learn that on occassion women have done the wild thing with their husband’s do’ings after he’s shuffled off his mortal coil and consequently was in no position to shuffle anything else!

This set me thinking ……. the morals of turning a corpse into a father don’t even register on my radar, what intrigued me was the similarity between this and the comment that has wrung in my ears for most of my life.

I refer to the one about it being like raising the dead.  After a severe bout of Googling I discovered the existance of a machine called an “Electro-ejaculator” It took a while because although Google is superb I was having trificulty in wording the search.

How do they get a dead man to spray his socks …errrr.. what do you do to get a stiff, stiff and come after he’s gone …errr … if a woman who’s now a widow wants to do to her late husband what she refused to do when he wasn’t ….

Once I narrowed down the search the answer came immediately, which is a coincidence.

The electro gubbins concerned looks like this: -

I’ve posted the photo in case you have one tucked away behind the clock on the mantlepiece and have always wondered what the hell it was…….

Now apparently the procedure still works hours after death has been bestowed upon him, possibly days! The electric probe is inserted into the rectum next to the prostate. A current consisting of oodles of volts is then shot up his jacksy.  This results in immediate erection and Bingo the massed crowds all run round with jam jars. The coffin it seems has to be extended to accommodate the deceased’s smile

Fantastic! ……… but here’s the sting in the tail.

I’ve searched e-Bay, Government surplus auctions, you name it ……do you think I can find one?

It’s just as well really, I’d never get to work, and consequently wouldn’t be able to pay the electricity bill.

It must have happened to you at some time. There you are sitting in your car at a junction or something and you just get the feeling that the driver approaching is about to do something unbelievably daft.  Then guess what?  They do!

Perhaps they turn without indicating, or indicate without turning.  Often there’s no real evidence they are paid up members of “The Dopey Brigade” however there must have been something subtle you picked up on because having nudged you in the proverbials your guardian angel then whispered down your ear something like “Now this could be worth watching!”

Perhaps just being out on the road makes you more aware of those that are firing on only three cylinders, after all it’s too dangerous to be taken casually.  However this goes on all the time and you really should be awake to it.

A while back I was given a “Heads up” whilst at a house clearance auction.  I was so pleased as I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it for worlds.

It happened like this.

Getting bored with the endless parade of dusty old paintings and badly stained electro plated candlesticks my attention wandered to a fellow bidder who was aimlessly walking around in a distracted manner.  He was alone but giving a good impersonation of somebody trying to solve the world’s problems over the phone whilst cooking the dinner, juggling two chain saws and keeping on eye on the kids who were playing hopscotch on the M1.

Everybody else in the room had positioned themselves where they could catch the eye of the auctioneer, their catalogues were neatly folded and marked at the lots they were interested in.  Not him though, he was wondering around, shedding sheets of paper as he absentmindedly picked up lots that had already been sold, then stepping backwards onto other people’s feet. I doubt there was a single individual there who hadn’t clocked him, whilst he demonstrated total ingnorance regarding his surroundings and those about him.  With a heavy sigh he looked at the auctioneer, then totally disregarding the poor guy trying to conclude the sale of Lot 247 he interrupted him by demanding to know what lot they were on.

This was like sticking a bamboo cane into the spokes of a speeding pushbike.  Everything came to a screaming halt, during which the auctioneer forgot what the last bid was and to whom he was trying to extract the next one.  People moaned and muttered, he was quizzed as to whether he was trying to bid, he countered with the defence that if he’d wanted to bid then he’d hardly have enquired as to what lot was being sold.  The auctioneer stated that once bidding had commenced, conversations and enquiries were not welcome.  However this criticism went straight over his head as he was now looking for somewhere to rest his not overly streamlined arse.

Turning his back on everyone he ambled over towards the furniture waiting to come under the hammer.  Several sofas and easy chairs were already occupied by punters, suddenly his eye was taken by a Victorian cane garden chair.  It was a delicate piece that looked as if it had all the tensile strength of papier mache.  He gazed at it and inspected the worm riddled frame, he checked his catalogue and scratched his chin. I had already given this piece the once over myself half an hour previously and concluded that the only thing keeping it together was the woodworm all holding hands. It hardly seemed capable of supporting it’s own weight, and I pitied anyone who tried to lift it without being left just holding two handfuls of dusty powder.  Still, maybe he owned a dust shop, perhaps he’d cornered the market in exporting furniture that was left with only a life of hours, who knows?

A felt a gentle tickle in my left ear and a fairy voice said, “Don’t ignore this, you’ve seen enough evidence already to know he’s an accident that’s been circulating for ages ….. he’s now on final approach!”

Surely he wasn’t going to bid on it?……Nope ….. he was going to sit on it!

At first it wasn’t obvious that this was his intention for he appeared to have lost interest in it and had his back towards it.  Then to my amazement he slowly buckled his knees and ever so gently lowered his 20 odd stone earthwards.  He’d reached that point where although he’d made contact he still wasn’t supported by it, when he suddenly sighed and allowed gravity to take over.  He visibly relaxed into the embrace of the ninety year old piece of casual, part time furniture.

The assortment of creaks, snaps and p’twangs as the frame flew apart were only outshone in the impressiveness stakes by the look of astonishment on his face when it occurred to him that gravity still had a hold, and that his journey southwards was about to begin in earnest.

His next decision was momentous.  Not content with demolishing somebody else’s chair by crushing it under him, he concluded that the situation could be saved by grabbing hold of the rosewood china cabinet next to him!  A foolish move I felt. 

Still it did have a delaying tactic in so much as his final demise was put off by almost a whole handful of seconds.  This was due to his having grabbed the cabinet by the door handle, which of course hadn’t been locked by the last person who had wanted to examine the half tea service that was at this very moment sliding towards a fateful reconoiter with the concrete some eighteen inches below.

It occured to me that although the chair was clearly in pieces it was still obstinately hanging in mid air, so it was likely that my friend’s final resting place was to have a foundation of smashed crockery, as by now he was physically propelling the tea set with a force that outmanouvered mere gravity. 

The most attractive option was that he would end up inside the china cabinet as he was still forcibly hanging on to the open door like grim death, whilst his head entered the gap.  However I was a mere amateur at such spectacles of human endeavour, for although I had noted the presence of the pot jardinaire on top of the now fully animated china cabinet I hadn’t expected it to play such a major part as fate had obviously intended.  I guessed it would go backwards and just land on top of the unsuspecting child in the pushchair in front, but no, it wasn’t to be!

It went skywards in a truly impressive arc. Having reached its zenith it changed direction and plumetted onto the back of his neck with a precision that would have made the damnbusters murmur in appreciation.  He made his first noise, not so much a yell more a strangled moan of acceptance that today wasn’t going all his way.

The shock of the impact on his neck coincided with the journey’s end for all of the other mobile elements of this circus including his arse. Throwing his head back he managed to complete his entry into the world of china cabinets and spectacularly emerged through the top of it.  He was wearing the damn thing and sitting on a nest of bamboo and porcelain shards to boot.  People sitting within five yards of him were nonchalantly picking bits of wood and glass out of their hair.

The whole room was frozen, everybody just looked at him, nobody seemed to want to approach him and offer help in case his bountiful actions weren’t yet finalised, what else was left for him to attempt?

He looked up at the auctioneer, the auctioneer looked down at him.

Straightening his hat he admonished the man with the gavel……

“Well I’m still waiting …. what lot are we on?”

A question to you all………..

Tattoos?

Yes?
No?
Good?
Bad?
Attractive?
Ugly?
Would you?
Have you?

Well yesterday I was sitting in front of the television, counting my legs when suddenly the programme changed to tattoos.

After about 10minutes I couldn’t take any more. It was all about the one they hold in Edinburgh.

Now I find bagpipes irritating at the best of times. However I do believe that this was their original intention, in other words; to scare or unsettle the enemy just before waggling your claymore in their faces.
What I find trificult to comprehend is how many tartan clad marching bands does anyone really want to watch in one session?
Not very many I’d have guessed, but in Edinburgh there were simply tens of people who were only outnumbered by how many bagpipe stranglers of every creed colour size and gender there were present, and all bustling each other to be annoying.

What really puzzles me is that considering that bagpipes originated in Iran and were only taken to Scotland by The Romans (obviously hoping to banish them forever by relocating them to the furthest known extremity) why is that Military Tattoos consist of everybody from diminutive Ghurkas and muscle rippling ebony skinned chaps down to American batton twirling girls who appear to have universal joints inserted where knees and elbows should be ….. However, all garbed in full ceremonial Highland dress (The McClone Tartan?)

Why aren’t they all strutting their stuff and strangling their sheep stomachs over in Tehran where they could take advantage of being enveloped in either a grey sack or an ill fitting nylon business suit?

I don’t subscribe to the stereotypical whitewashing of a group of people simply becasue they do a particular job.  You know the sort of thing I’m referring to …. “Oh he’s a traffic warden is he? Bunch of little Hitlers all of them!”

However see what you make of this.

My doctor’s surgery runs a telephone repeat prescription order line.  This means you call a number tell the nice lady at the other end you’d like another supply of mind numbing drugs and then pop in two days later to collect the prescription. Yay!

So Monday, having noticed I was down to a tab or three in the box, I wrang, it was engaged; I rang again and again and again and again and again and again ……. I’m sure you’ve got the idea by now.

So quite exhausted I left it until yesterday.  The line opens at 11.00am, so I called at 10.59 and 30 seconds, the line was closed save for a recorded message telling me that it opened at 11.00am, so I immediately rang back as it was now 11.00am and 10 seconds and ……. it was engaged!

So I rang again and again and again and again ……. I’m sure you’ve got the idea by now. Then at half past noon I thought “Sod this” and phoned the surgery on the normal line. It rang twice and was answered.

“So and So’s surgery, how can I help you?” Now following the conversation that ensued I have decided to buy the receptionist a dictionary so she can look up the word “Help” I’d hate her to continue labouring under the misapprehension that it means “obstructive, lacking initiative, rule bound, cracked record”

The jolly chat went like this: -

Hello, I’d like to order a repeat prescription thank you

No, you have to ring the prescription hotline, the number is 024 76……….

Thank you, but that’s pointless, I was ringing it all day yesterday and continually from 11.00am this morning it is constantly engaged, so if you take my details and pass them on please.

No, you have to ring the prescription hotline.

I’ve just explained that I have wasted a day and a half trying to do that, so I need you to pass it on to them please.

No, you have to ring the prescription hotline, because that’s how it works.

But it doesn’t work. My name is Cl_____ I need Venlafaxine……

Hold on a minute, you have to ring the prescription hotline, because that’s what we have to do.

Eh? I thought they were in the surgery.

We have to ring the prescription hotline if we need them because that’s the procedure.

I’m not interested in your procedures, don’t try to make them my problem, they’re your problem.  So where is the lady that operates this “HOTLINE”?

Well she is in this building.

Really? Where exactly?

She sits behind me.

Ok, then please turn around and tap her on the shoulder and tell her I need Venlafaxine.

It doesn’t work like that,  you have to ring her on the prescription hotline.

This is ridiculous, please pass her this phone and I’ll ask her myself.

I can’t do that, this is the reception phone not the prescription hotline phone.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10…… Let me talk to the Practice manager then.

You can’t talk to her.

Yes I can

No you can’t she’s in a room with a doctor, and I ‘m not disturbing her with this.

That’s ok, I can appreciate how much more important a doctor is than I am. I’ll talk to her deputy then.

She’s busy as well.

Why what’s she doing then?

She’s manning the prescription hotline.

Would you tell her someone wants to talk her to in her deputy manager role.

Certainly, just a minute.

Hello can I help you?

Yes please I’d like a repeat prescription thank you.

Certainly, what’s your name, date of birth and the medication you need?

It’s no wonder I need the drugs to keep me sane, how do you other poor buggers cope?

I popped into their mega sized store in Coventry recently and trundled along to the coffee aisle to see if there were any special offers to tempt me when I spotted that not only were there not any ………

“Buy two for only £6″

Or any such similar tempters but instead I espied a host of little shelf labels proudly gloating that they were the same price as Tescos.  Now I don’t know about you but I have always found this form of self congratulatory preening irritating to say the least.

You expect it from school children.  The teacher congratulates the slow child in class for having nearly bust a blood vessel in order to get most of their times table out in nearly the right order, when the brainy but lazy one at the back petulantly moans and points out that they too got that many right. 

However we see an awful lot of this in marketing today, only yesterday a bus wobbled past me in town, its side yelling at me that “So & So’s Jewellery  Store Would Match Any Price Anywhere Including The Internet”

Now I like a bargain as much as the next person, but this is not better than, this is the same as!

What these companies are doing is to get us the customers to undertake their market research for them.  They can’t be bothered to find out what prices their competitors are charging so they get you to do it for them.  If you can’t be bothered then they’ll begrudgingly charge you over the odds.  If you do take the time and trouble they graciously come down to the same price that you could have gotten it for when you were in the other shop down the road half an hour ago. Well Whoopee Doo!!!

We can see what’s in it for them, they stand a chance of selling their goods either at an inflated price or at the going rate without having to wear out their own shoe leather trudging around conducting their own retail intelligence.  But, what’s in it for me and you?  Umm ….. nothing really, you could have still have gotten at the same price earlier on. Cheeky bastards!

What Sainsburys were doing is parallel to the “You tell us how cheap we should be…” as it was saying “On this particular occassion we can match the others price.” But it’s like politicians and children, you quickly learn to listen to what they are not saying in order to get the bigger picture.

The politician that says “We have saved £XX K from the defence budget is admitting they haven’t supplied our fighting soldiers with enough equipment to protect their sorry arses whilst fighting some other fuckers war over in Kyzakibolloxstan.  The child that simperingly snuggles up to you and slowly sighs that they have cleared up all the mess in the kitchen for you, is really telling you they just broke the casserole dish given to you as a wedding present by Aunt Matilda.

So there I was amongst Sainsburys coffee shelves, joyfully admiring their pride at being as generous as Tesco, when I was politely interrupted by a member of staff who enquired if I needed any help.

“Do you need any help?” She interrupted.

“Well……….” I hesitated, I had issues here and did’nt want to appear rude to the nice lady who was merely doing her job and as such was obviously many steps removed from the jumped up eager young graduate in Head Office Marketing who had decide it would be a super idea to waste some of the marketing budget by gloating that Sainsburys were proud to have managed to be as good as Tescos.

“You see…” I tried again. “I notice your prices are as good as Tescos, but what I want is better than Tescos, if only by a penny, then I can see something in it for me.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” She sympathised with me. “When I was told to stick those on the shelves I also felt it was an insult, after all I too am a shopper, and I felt iritated by it.  After all, these stickers weren’t free, they cost Sainsburys to have them made in the first place.”

We both agreed there wasn’t much evidence of joined up thinking going on here.  I proclaimed then and there to go to Tescos and check this out, and if it turned out to be true I would then buy my coffee from them and reward their initiative over prices by patronising their coffee coffers!

But it got worse, as I slowly ambled away I read another shelf sticker, this one yelled at me that I could buy some packet of undesirable nonsense for 3np less than Tesco.  You would be forgiven for thinking this was exactly what i wanted to see, evidence of a benefit to me.

However I was now forced to conclude a completely different scenario was evident.  One one side of me was a child pointing out that coffee was the same price as Tesco, and on my right was a politician proudly proclaiming that Sainsburys were selling Kellogs Wheaty Bang cheaper than Tesco.

I lifted the veil of fog and gazed at all of the other items that festooned the shelves, and wondered how they compared to Tesco.  It didn’t take me long to realise that if they sat in neither the same price as nor were they cheaper than, then that left only one comparison to be made, surely?

I wrote to Sainsburys ask them why, by inference, they were joyfully charging more than Tesco for most of their produce.

Dear Sainsbury’s

I write to congratulate you on your recent marketing initiative in the coffee department.

I (until this weekend) shop at the Canley superstore in Coventry.

This weekend I was enthralled to notice little signs excitedly informing that certain brands of instant coffee were…

Same Price as Tesco’s

My initial response was to think : -

“Are you insulting my intelligence? What I want is cheaper than Tesco not same price!”

In fact if you hadn’t wasted the money having little signs printed up boasting that Tesco’s had taken the initiative to set the price and all you had managed was to jump on their coat tails and equal it, then the chances are you could have afforded to have knocked a penny off and then truly had something to blow your trumpet about.

However, having given this a tiny bit more thought, I feel I should apologise for having been so uncharitable towards you in my thought processes.

For if I casually examine the evidence in the whole and not restrict myself to merely the joys of the coffee aisle, I realise that the picture is in fact much larger and needs to be taken into consideration. To wit: -

You put up signs when you offer something from your bounteous shelves that you have priced lower than Tesco, likewise if it is the same price as Tesco.

Therefore it stands to reason that everything on your shelves that does not proudly sport a self congratulatory ticket must be more expensive than Tesco.

Even if I ignore your own brand items then it still leaves by far the majority of your inventory in that category.

Your Marketing Department is exceptionally honest, and I thank them for persuading me to review my shopping options.  For they speak the truth, Tesco do ask the same price for their coffee, and I bought it from them as they had several items that were cheaper than you and they gave me a free reusable canvas type bag to put it all in.

You might like to give them a try.

It took two days before I got a reply…………..

Dear Mr Clapham

Thank you for your email.  I am sorry that you are disappointed that we have been comparing our product prices to those of Tesco’s.  I can understand your concern.

Our customers’ feedback is very important to us.  We used this labelling system as a way of showing our customers that our prices either match or better those of one of our competitor’s.  However, this has caused a negative response from some of our customers.  Therefore, we have taken the decision to remove the shelf edge labels as of Tuesday, 15^th April, 2008.  Please accept my personal apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Your email also mentions that you got a free canvas bag when you shopped in Tesco’s recently.  We first launched our ‘Make the difference’ days one year ago by giving away ‘Bags for life’ to encourage customers to switch to reusable bags.  Last year, on our Bag for life ‘Make the difference’ days, we gave away over 15 million Bags for life.  Since our first ‘Make the difference’ day in April 2007 we have reduced the amount of orange plastic bags we give away by 100 million.  That’s 875 tonnes of plastic we have prevented going to landfill and enough bags to go around the world at least once.

Thank you once again for contacting us with your views.  I hope that your future experiences with Sainsbury’s are to your satisfaction.

Now what was that all about?

She admits that others have criticised them for this stance and consequently they have decided to remove them, but misses that the date she says they would have ditched the signs predates when I said I saw them. 

She apologises … even personally for my disappointment and understands why I felt that way …Eh? was that my letter she was answering?  I think not!

This smacks of “send the usual we care what our customers say letter, apologise and tack on the bit about our bags”

So I wrote back.

Dear Tracy

Thank you for your prompt reply. 

However I am confused as to how you understood me to “be disappointed that we have been comparing our product prices to those of Tesco’s” Actually I was congratulating your marketing department on making me aware how many of your items fit into neither the “Same as Tesco’s let alone the better than Tesco’s” price range, so therefore they must be worse than Tesco’s.  Very honourable I thought.

Why do you understand my concern, when I am not concerned at all?  Why do you feel the need to personally apologise for any convenience, when I clearly haven’t been inconvenienced.

I suggest you reread my original letter and understand what I said and not try and change its meaning in order to allow you to trundle out the stock phrases you learnt on your “How to answer letters from customers training courses.”

At the end of the day if the general opinion is

“OOPS! We didn’t think deeply enough about that one did we? …. Then so be it, it’s not a problem, we’re all human.

Never mind, thanks awfully for the information about your orange plastic bags, that’s a super effort, well done.  You should have got some TV coverage of all those bags going around the world once, it must have been quite a sight!

Hope your weather is as nice as ours, although it is a bit chilly if you don’t keep out of the wind.

Best Regards

 ps …..Edited to correct an error … OOPS! I didn’t think deeply enough about before I sent it.

It’s now two weeks since I sent my reply and I haven’t heard a word from Kind Regards Tracy Green, I do hope she is ok, she might be off sick …. perhaps.

Lucky me, I was given the opportunity to go on the dole recently for a couple of weeks.

During my interview with them they wanted to know why I was opting to work for only three days a week.

Of course the answer was because of my mental health issues and the medication I take which tends to bollocks up my body clock, energy and concentration span.

The next question however truly floored me.

So Mr C……… are you often bed-ridden?

Well, before I had taken time to ponder the impertinence of such a question, I realised I had already answered.

“It does happen of course, although I have to admit I can be a bit partial to a dollop of spontaneity over the kitchen table”

Afterwards I did wonder what kind of work they were going to shovel my way? …….. none as it happens!