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A Long Time Gone

Once again, I return to your screens. Yes, it’s been five weeks since I last wrote and five weeks since more of you read & liked what I wrote than ever before. You would think this level of unsolicited testimonial would have dragged me back sooner. Normally, it would, but these past few weeks have been filled with nothing but hell, torment, financial stress, jury service and, after a gap of about 9 years, overtime.

Come with me, if you will, as I share my April 2011 with you.

Let’s get the worst out of the way first.

How Stupid Do You Think We Are?

As I told you all last time, I don’t often resort to anger in my blogs. It doesn’t really make for an entertaining read and I usually walk away from the keyboard angrier than when I sat down. Nonetheless, when you are sitting in front of your TV and see an advert from those nice people at Kelloggs proclaiming that our long wait is over and we can now get our hungry mits on mini Shredded Wheat with jam in the middle, you do wonder where it will all end. Many years ago, I ate a Pop Tart and such was the sugar and chemical rush, I believed myself a member of Kool and the Gang for over an hour. Only the intervention of a close relative stopped me from actually “Getting Down On It” in a place where neighbours could see.

People my age don’t need so much sugar and kids probably don’t either. My dad didn’t even approve of Sugar Puffs. Mini Shredded Wheats with Jam in would probably drive him to complete distraction. He never really got over the fact that you could buy bread sauce in a packet.

Next time I am shovelling  un-sugared Bran Flakes in to my diabetic, overweight body, I will think of those doing the same with jam filled nonsense and thank god that I have an angry fire in my soul that pointlessly rallies against this sort of thing in a blog that about 20 people read. Most of me will  be jealous as hell but just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll stick to my fibre and roughage for now.

Service

Those of you have undertaken Jury Service will appreciate how vague I have to be in describing my three days of civil responsibility. To be honest, it was a bit of a bore and not at all like you see on that universal standard for us all, Television. The first Monday dawned. I rose, completely overdressed and after a bowl of jam filled mini Shredded Wheat, I stuffed almost of all the required paperwork into my coat pocket. There would be more than adequate financial compensation for my trouble, but this would not extend to paying for parking in a busy city all day. A bus it was then. The bus stop is only 5 minutes from my front door, so with about 20 minutes to spare and a growing sense of terror at the unexpected fortnight ahead, I set off.  4 minutes later and I found myself standing at a bus stop with several people who, on a good day, aspire to be the dregs of society. I say “standing with”, but I was actually standing far enough away to give the impression that I might just be looking for my lost pocket watch in the gutter. The game was up of course when the bus arrived, but by then they were trying to shepherd their horrible offspring onto the bus and had no time for the smart bloke who looked shocked at the fact that 20p wouldn’t get you into town these days.

The 48C

Where I got on the bus is fairly near the start of the route, so it was just me and my bus stop companions for a few stops. Gradually, the bus filled with more of them and finally, about half a mile from town, I was forced to share my seat with someone who, until now, I have struggled to share Plymouth with. Their concept of “half the seat” needed some examination, as did their standards of both personal hygiene and inhibition. “Get away from me you greasy-haired witch”, screamed the voice in my head but better sense prevailed and I busied myself with staring out of the window and trying to ignore the toothless hag’s reflection, gormlessly doing the same.

You could say that I am picking on an easy target and falling back on that age-old British habit of pointing fingers at those who are slightly different. You would probably be true but I do wonder why the people I point at seem to be showing off about it. Part of me begs them to stop talking their nonsense or, better still, stop talking completely.  When will they understand that we don’t care about their conversation and actually find it quite annoying to have to listen. Before you all let me know, I do realise that they won’t.

By the time we reached town, the bus was full, loud, hot and stupid. There were 4 O Levels on that bus and they were all mine.

I exited on Royal Parade, far too quickly than politeness would suggest and only slowed down to walking pace about 50 yards down the pavement.

I don’t like buses.

In common with most ex-pupils of my school, I am ridiculously early for everything but,   thanks to non-nonsensical bus timetables, it would be at least 10 minutes before I was ridiculously early. I could actually see the court building, so I had no fear of being late. Only a coffee could fill the void. Now, some of you may work in a big city and will appreciate the temptations that surround you. In addition to refunding my bus fare, I was to be paid £5.71 subsistence allowance per day. It wasn’t even 9am and I had already spent £2.50 on a small latte and a paper. This was going to be an expensive fortnight.

With 10 minutes to spare, I found myself and several others outside the side entrance to the court building. After establishing that we were all there for the same reason, much very British small talk took place and time passed very nicely. 9.20am came and went, but nobody had let us in. With the world-weariness of someone who had done the same thing very other Monday, a young man leaned out of the window and told us in no uncertain terms that we should be at THE OTHER side entrance. Sure enough there was another one and after a thorough security check, we found ourselves in the Jury reception room with about 40 other upstanding members of the community. I had left the most important documents at home but it didn’t seem to matter. What did bother me was how many people had a big pile of books and/or a laptop. It never occurred to me that such things would be allowed. On re-reading the leaflet, the instructions could be so interpreted but not by me unfortunately. After a quick introductory video and a talk by the chief usher, we waited to be called. With only a small pile of old magazines and a muted TV showing Sky News, the time crawled by. Seriously. I had read 3 copies of Private Eye, had a good stare at everyone else, written their life stories in my head, thought of at least 12 things to blog about (soon forgotten) and even had a quiet doze, only to look at the clock and see I had only been in there 35 minutes. If there is one thing sure to make time drag, it’s the idea that someone will need you at any moment. Finally, at about noon, 20 good people were taken away and not long after, all but 12 returned. They were told to come back tomorrow and we were told not to come in tomorrow and just to call in at 6pm to enquire about Wednesday.

At 6pm on Tuesday night, the answer phone message told us to come in on Wednesday. At about 10am on Wednesday, we went down to the court and I was selected to the jury.

Lunchtime

We broke for lunch at about 12.50 and after using almost all of my subsistence allowance on a sandwich and a coffee, I went outside to sit with the good people of Plymouth. Unfortunately, I was to be disappointed as the good people were all somewhere else. The courtyard outside The Civic Centre was bathed in sunlight (unlike in the photo) and full of people. I finished my sandwich and coffee in about 5 minutes and then wondered to myself what I would do for the next hour or so.

Then I smelt a pasty. Then I saw the bakery on Royal Parade. Then I went and bought one. Along with a diet coke and a donut, I had now spent almost £8.00 that I couldn’t claim back. This was going to be an expensive fortnight.

I ate the second course of my lunch on a bench overlooking the pond you can see in the photo. I was on the bench in the bottom right hand corner. For reasons best known to himself, a bloke was playing (I am sure that’s not the right word) with a remote controlled tug boat in the pond and nudging an un-powered model oil tanker around. It was fascinating to watch and very impressive.

42 minutes to go…

I went for a walk up to The Hoe and by the time I got back to the court, I only had to 17 minutes to spare. I think Plymouth city centre is in some sort of time warp.

Court business sped past and we were released at about 5pm.

That was it. The end of my Jury service. Part of me was a bit sad but, financially, I was probably better off getting back to work the next day and returning to the normal swing of things. I could have not been so lucky and ended up with a case that dragged on for weeks, I suppose, but I had seen enough of civil responsibility in 2011.

Kerbing My Enthusiasm

Regular readers will be more than familiar with my Rover 214. Sunday last, things took a turn for the worse. It seemed so simple. Take mum to breakfast at Royal William Yard and then tidy up the garden, do some ironing, tidy out my bedroom cupboards and generally do Sunday things.

An Unrelated Photo

On the way to Royal William Yard, I drove into a traffic island. Over a week later, I have no idea why or how it happened. Perhaps something caught my eye. It doesn’t really matter any more because it happened. The impact wasn’t that terrible – just a hard thud as the driver side wheel hit, followed by another as the back wheel hit in roughly the same place. The car bounced quite high but I wasn’t hurt and neither was mum. We scraped to a halt a bit further up the road. On first inspection, it looked like I had two burst tyres and nothing much more. The RAC arrived and he seemed to agree. He took both wheels off and we drove in his van to Kwikfit, a short distance away. We jumped the queue, as only an RAC man can, and £132 poorer, we drove back to the car. After both wheels were re-attached, it was quite obvious that the bottom of the car was completely f**ked. I could moan at the RAC bloke but the truth is, I should have spotted it too.

To cut an already long story short, on the advice of my local garage, I scrapped the car the next day and got £90 for it. The keen mathematicians amongst you will already be writing in red and you’d be right. To be honest, I have been using that red pen since I bought the car in July 2007. Tax, insurance and petrol aside, I have spent about £2000 repairing it and I would certainly have gone throwing similar amounts at it had this not happened.

After a week of taxis, buses, dodgy car dealers and endless on-line searching, I now have a Vauxhall Vectra. It seems fine but time will tell. The Rover cost me about the same and lasted 4 years. Hopefully, this one will do the same and cost a little less. In the meantime, I have to get used to new controls, a new seat and a car that feels like it weighs twice as much as the last one. Oh yeah, and it’s a 1.6 so the tax is bloody expensive too.

In a fitting, and appropriate smack with the 2011 reality hammer, I was none-too-pleased to be charged £25 by Halifax Car Insurance for changing the car on my insurance policy. This growing trend of charging “admin” fees is getting to be a real pain. It’s not the first time in recent years this has happened. They would no doubt blame the current economic climate but I would suggest that in the current economic climate, they should be grateful for the £330 I chuck their way each year. In amongst that exorbitant fee, I assumed there was already a considerable amount of “admin” fee.

Total, Complete Bastards

Over month ago, I was having a good day. It was a Friday, it was sunny and I was off to spend the morning with a good chum. She was on the way back the doctors when I arrived and I thought it would be a good idea to park outside her house and then walk to meet her just up the road. As it was hot, I threw my coat in the back of the car, tucked my wallet into my left trouser pocket and my phone into the right one. At some point in the next 10 minutes, my phone fell out of the pocket. Whether this was on the pavement or during my quick visit to the corner shop, I don’t know. For all I know, someone could have nicked it from my pocket in the shop.

Over the next hour, I retraced my steps time and time again. I went into the shop and asked and I even took everything out of the car. Nothing. The phone was gone. As it was locked, anyone finding it would have no idea who I was, but part of me hoped they would hand it into the shop or the police.

Work time came and thanks to Google Latitude, I was able to ask one of my four closest colleagues where my phone’s GPS indicated it was. For those of you who don’t know what Google Latitude is, it allows me to let chosen people see where I am on a Google Map. It sounds intrusive and stalkey but actually its just a bit geeky and harmless. In this case, I hoped it to be bloody useful. Curiously, my friend Tiger’s phone showed it to be about 2 miles away and after a quick refresh of the data, it showed up in Victoria Park, about 2 miles further on. After a moments consideration, it was obvious that the bastard who had picked it up had just driven past where I work.

I could have gone to Victoria Park but even if there was only one person there, I am not the sort of person to accuse a stranger.

It was all moot by now as I had informed Vodafone of it’s theft and by the time we went upstairs to being the working day, my HTC Legend was a useless brick and of no use to anyone, bastard or not. Could they have cracked my password in the hour or so I looked for it? I doubt it. The SD Card was encrypted too. At most, I lost a few photos and about a year’s worth of text messages (I hate to delete).

Unfortunately, the month that followed was anything but smooth sailing.

The Police were fine. They freely admitted there was little they could do and that it was unlikely that I would get my phone back. Depressing, but at least they were honest. They supplied me with the required crime reference number and even asked if I had been traumatised by the event. I was a little, but I doubt any offered counselling would have helped much. I suspect I would have had to pay for it anyway.

The phone was insured by those nice people at Barclays. It doesn’t cost me anything as it’s included in my account fee. As the same £16 a month also covers my RAC membership (9 call-outs this year and counting) I have nothing to grumble about. Vodafone sent me a new SIMM immediately and all seemed to be well. Unfortunately, Vodafone haven’t responded to a single one of the many emails I have sent them in the last month. Not one. The call centre is a little better but, as always, the language barrier complicates things terribly. The SIMM card came in an envelope addressed to me but the despatch note mentioned some bloke in Bristol. “Thanks Ok”, said the call centre chappie, “all SIMM cards are blank. We can activate it to your number when you have your new phone.” Naively, I took this at face value. After four requests that Vodafone supply a written proof of purchase on letter-headed paper, nothing was forthcoming. Finally, and in desperation, I convinced Barclays to accept the one and only email Vodafone had sent me as proof. 1 day later, I had a nice new Blackberry Torch 9800.  Once again, in the spirit of the current economic climate, I had to pay an “excess fee” of £25. Excess of what? God knows.

Following another call to Vodafone to activate the SIMM, the phone stopped working. Just after buying the new car, my first trip took me to The Vodafone Shop in town and 3 minutes later, it was all fixed. A new car and a new phone inside an hour. It only took a month.

Being without a phone AND a car at the same time was a bit like I imagine life in 1950′s Cuba. You wander about, completely unable to contact the outside world. Quite why this feeling is so terrible, I still haven’t worked out, but it is. Before the car was

Cuba, 1950

wrecked, I used to drive home terrified – what if I break down? I even had to resort to reading a book at break time in work and walking around as everyone else had either popped out for a fag or was hunched over their little 3″ display checking out Facebook or Twitter. I felt left out and I felt like everyone was talking about cool things behind my back. How the hell did this happen? What turned me into some sort of paranoid nut-job wandering around the earth, fearing everyone and everything around me like a Russian dissident?

Looking for a second hand car is complicated ever-so-slightly too by not having access to the Internet on the move and not being able to ring the number of anything you find on-line. The realisation that you are in the middle of an nondescript housing estate with no way of contacting anyone you know and/or love or need is scary as hell. Also, things are a REALLY long way away. Bus Stops, shops and eateries that you speed by in the motor are REALLY, REALLY far away when you have to walk.

Tech-up luddites. I have seen life in 2011 without a car and a mobile phone. It ain’t pretty. It ain’t even life. Pathetic it might be, but progress doesn’t wait for you and the longer you stay away, the worse it seems. If you haven’t done anything about it by now, it may actually be too late. I have a revolver you can borrow and I know where there are some woods.

So how was your April?

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