As the price of petrol gets higher and higher the threat of disruptive action grows heavier and heavier and, today, TransAction 2007 is reportedly arranging for a convoy of trucks to descend on London to deliver a coffin symbolising the death of the haulage industry to Number 10.
Diesel prices are 30% higher than they were a year ago and that, along with strike action at fuel depots, means that many people are starting to panic purchase their petrol. One forecourt local to me even ran out of unleaded yesterday and this prompted me to join the ranks of panic buyers and go in search of some fuel.
The Jeep still had a quarter of a tank of unleaded in it, but it uses that just to drive out of the car park, and even though we can go several days without using the car I decided it was probably best to potter out whilst most people are in their offices and top it to the brim. I even chucked a couple of 5-litre cans in to the boot – for the lawnmower, obviously.
Finding a petrol station that still had unleaded was surprisingly easy. Clearly, a fuel shortage hasn’t hit us yet, but because the newspapers say it’s going to there were a few cars on the forecourt of Soham’s BP station, and I wasn’t the only one who had decided to fill up a couple of spare cans as well as my car’s tank.
At £1.12 a litre (that equates to an eye-watering $10.02 US Dollars per gallon, Mr America) it wasn’t the cheapest petrol station around, but at least there weren’t queues down the high street waiting to use it and I hadn’t had to drive around and around burning off fuel in search of an available unleaded pump.
As the miserable April showers clattered on the corrugated roof I filled the Jeep and my two cans up and watched men in all sorts of cars doing the same around me, all hoping we’ve stolen a march on any potential fuel disaster and all praying that it won’t be as bad as the press is saying it might be. I rounded the pump off to a credit card crumbling £80.00 and sauntered in to pay.
“Number seven or eight,” I told the attendant as I got to the front of the queue. I couldn’t see which pump number my car was alongside. “It’s the one that’s at eighty quid.”
“Certainly, sir,” the attendant said. He took my credit card, pushed it in to the keypad and got me to type in my PIN. Within a second the payment had cleared, he handed me the slip and I was walking away when I suddenly realised that I needed a VAT receipt for the accountant.
“Sorry, mate,” I said, stepping back. “Can I have a VAT receipt please?”
He nodded, idly tapping some keys, and produced a slip of paper which he handed to me. I was about to walk away when I realised he’d made a mistake. “Sorry again,” I said, trying to be polite and not at all annoying. “I think you’ve given me the wrong receipt. This one says £46.21.”
“Bugger,” the attendant hissed. “It’s the right receipt, that’s the second time today I’ve done that. Sorry, chap, but I better charge you the difference then...”
Latest Twitter Feed:
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Man Drives Car In To River. Blames Technology.
There’s an old urban legend that a man in America once bought himself a Winnebago and set about going on a camping trip. Seeing that his new camper van was kitted with the latest in Cruise Control technology, he got the vehicle up to the speed limit of 55mph, pressed the ‘set’ button and headed in to the back to make a cup of coffee.
Later, after his Winnebago had buried itself in to the side of a tree and he’d been cut out by the rescue services, he successfully sued the manufacturer for not having made it expressly clear that Cruise Control only maintained the speed of the vehicle and did not, in fact, allow his recreational vehicle to act like a twenty-tonne Knight Industries Two Thousand.
To this day, if you purchase an American car, the owner’s manual will tell you, in explicit detail, how to drive your automobile on the pavement*. As an Englishman, I’ve often wondered if I could get away with that in an American Court of Law...
Today, it seems that Satellite Navigation has become the modern-day version of Cruise Control, after a taxi-driver (of all people) insisted that his Sat Nav unit guided him in to the River Nar.
Now, I’ve used Satellite Navigation systems since their very first automobile use and, whilst they can turn you the wrong way up a one-way street, send you round a roundabout fourteen times or, indeed, insist that the M11, M25, M40, M42, M6 is the best way to get from Cambridge to Nottingham, I have never, in all the years of using one, been told to carry straight on in to a body of water.
And even if it did, I do have eyes, and a brake pedal, so I’m fairly sure I’d be able to stop before I realised what mistake I was making. Unless, of course, I was in the back making myself a cup of cawfee.
The thing is, I have never understood how anybody can misunderstand a satellite navigation system. More and more cases are coming to light of people getting it wrong with their in-car toys and recently I also read a case of a man apparently following the instructions of his navigation system, which lead him on to a railway line. How? Does that look like a great big stretch of tarmac ahead of you, or does it look like something a descendent of Stephenson’s Rocket might use?
Lorry drivers apparently get stuck under low bridges because they forget to tell their sat nav system they’re driving a Heavy Goods Vehicle instead of a Mazda MX-5 and one village is reported to be trying to have itself removed from navigation maps because drivers have started using it as a rat-run to avoid congested traffic. Even in this hi-tech world of modern guidance systems, I’ve still found it quicker to sit in the slow moving motorway traffic than try and race around Britain’s tractor-congested b-roads.
But all this erroneous sat nav use baffles me. Surely, if you’re heading towards a river you can see it, and if your car is telling you to turn right on to some train tracks you wouldn’t blindly follow it. That’s sort of like following Jennifer Aniston to the top of a cliff in the hopes of some rumpy-pumpy but jumping off instead when she tells you to. It’s rather stupid.
Satellite Navigation systems are only as good as their programming – and the signal strength they’re receiving. If you tell it you’re driving a car when in reality you are behind the wheel of a forty-tonne truck, you can’t blame it for taking you on a route you can’t follow. If a road is running parallel to a railway line, it’s not the system’s fault if you make the mistake of not travelling the extra ten yards needed to turn right on to the B1382 instead of the Ely-Norwich mainline. I tend to glance at the screen when it tells me to “turn right now”, just to make sure there is actually a road there, and not the sea.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer must be because the voice of most satellite navigation systems is that of a woman, and men would rather lick their own rectum than take map-reading lessons from ladies.
Maybe if our TomTom systems came with Tim as the default voice rather than Jane, we’d stop listening half-heartedly to what we're being told and start concentrating on the directions properly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Presumably an explanation might be needed here, for either the incredibly dense or the Americans: here in the UK, we call the bit where you drive a car the road, and the bit where the people walk the pavement. Unlike in America, where the bit where pedestrians are appears to be something called a sidewalk, and the bit where the vehicles are is called the pavement. Fortunately, we English aren’t completely stupid, or you could see how we might get confused if we were to follow the manual to the letter.
Later, after his Winnebago had buried itself in to the side of a tree and he’d been cut out by the rescue services, he successfully sued the manufacturer for not having made it expressly clear that Cruise Control only maintained the speed of the vehicle and did not, in fact, allow his recreational vehicle to act like a twenty-tonne Knight Industries Two Thousand.
To this day, if you purchase an American car, the owner’s manual will tell you, in explicit detail, how to drive your automobile on the pavement*. As an Englishman, I’ve often wondered if I could get away with that in an American Court of Law...
Today, it seems that Satellite Navigation has become the modern-day version of Cruise Control, after a taxi-driver (of all people) insisted that his Sat Nav unit guided him in to the River Nar.
Now, I’ve used Satellite Navigation systems since their very first automobile use and, whilst they can turn you the wrong way up a one-way street, send you round a roundabout fourteen times or, indeed, insist that the M11, M25, M40, M42, M6 is the best way to get from Cambridge to Nottingham, I have never, in all the years of using one, been told to carry straight on in to a body of water.
And even if it did, I do have eyes, and a brake pedal, so I’m fairly sure I’d be able to stop before I realised what mistake I was making. Unless, of course, I was in the back making myself a cup of cawfee.
The thing is, I have never understood how anybody can misunderstand a satellite navigation system. More and more cases are coming to light of people getting it wrong with their in-car toys and recently I also read a case of a man apparently following the instructions of his navigation system, which lead him on to a railway line. How? Does that look like a great big stretch of tarmac ahead of you, or does it look like something a descendent of Stephenson’s Rocket might use?
Lorry drivers apparently get stuck under low bridges because they forget to tell their sat nav system they’re driving a Heavy Goods Vehicle instead of a Mazda MX-5 and one village is reported to be trying to have itself removed from navigation maps because drivers have started using it as a rat-run to avoid congested traffic. Even in this hi-tech world of modern guidance systems, I’ve still found it quicker to sit in the slow moving motorway traffic than try and race around Britain’s tractor-congested b-roads.
But all this erroneous sat nav use baffles me. Surely, if you’re heading towards a river you can see it, and if your car is telling you to turn right on to some train tracks you wouldn’t blindly follow it. That’s sort of like following Jennifer Aniston to the top of a cliff in the hopes of some rumpy-pumpy but jumping off instead when she tells you to. It’s rather stupid.
Satellite Navigation systems are only as good as their programming – and the signal strength they’re receiving. If you tell it you’re driving a car when in reality you are behind the wheel of a forty-tonne truck, you can’t blame it for taking you on a route you can’t follow. If a road is running parallel to a railway line, it’s not the system’s fault if you make the mistake of not travelling the extra ten yards needed to turn right on to the B1382 instead of the Ely-Norwich mainline. I tend to glance at the screen when it tells me to “turn right now”, just to make sure there is actually a road there, and not the sea.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer must be because the voice of most satellite navigation systems is that of a woman, and men would rather lick their own rectum than take map-reading lessons from ladies.
Maybe if our TomTom systems came with Tim as the default voice rather than Jane, we’d stop listening half-heartedly to what we're being told and start concentrating on the directions properly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Presumably an explanation might be needed here, for either the incredibly dense or the Americans: here in the UK, we call the bit where you drive a car the road, and the bit where the people walk the pavement. Unlike in America, where the bit where pedestrians are appears to be something called a sidewalk, and the bit where the vehicles are is called the pavement. Fortunately, we English aren’t completely stupid, or you could see how we might get confused if we were to follow the manual to the letter.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Only Vegetarians Can Stop Global Warming. Apparently.
Hot on the heels of having to shell out £24.5 million pounds in his divorce settlement, Sir Paul McCartney has proven that his short-lived marriage to Lady Mucca has sent him slightly mad by announcing that the way in which to save the planet from global warming is to turn vegetarian.
Sir Paul, whose first wife Linda was a staunch advocate of vegetarianism and whose last wife eats men, made the comments after a 2006 United Nations study showed that cattle are greater producers of so-called greenhouse gasses than all automotive transport put together.
The former Beatle says he is surprised that more environmental organisations aren’t promoting vegetarianism as a powerful way to combat global warming and says that the amount of land used for rearing cattle is adversely affecting the environment. I think it’s probably because most people running these companies enjoy popping to the pub for a good piece of steak at the weekend.
Presumably, then, Sir Paul would like to see all the animals killed and lots of carbon dioxide emitting tower blocks put in their place?
Methane gasses produced by livestock have been cited as one of the major contributors to the demise of the penguins but have you ever spent much time in the direct company of a vegetarian? Spend the night with somebody who’s consumed some broccoli and sprouts before bedtime and it won’t be cupid who lifts the duvet several times throughout the night.
Whilst I whole-heartedly embrace the idea that it is not, thankfully, cars that are killing the planet it strikes me that the solution to the cattle-versus-environment problem isn’t to leave them standing around merrily farting all day, but to eat them.
Sir Paul, whose first wife Linda was a staunch advocate of vegetarianism and whose last wife eats men, made the comments after a 2006 United Nations study showed that cattle are greater producers of so-called greenhouse gasses than all automotive transport put together.
The former Beatle says he is surprised that more environmental organisations aren’t promoting vegetarianism as a powerful way to combat global warming and says that the amount of land used for rearing cattle is adversely affecting the environment. I think it’s probably because most people running these companies enjoy popping to the pub for a good piece of steak at the weekend.
Presumably, then, Sir Paul would like to see all the animals killed and lots of carbon dioxide emitting tower blocks put in their place?
Methane gasses produced by livestock have been cited as one of the major contributors to the demise of the penguins but have you ever spent much time in the direct company of a vegetarian? Spend the night with somebody who’s consumed some broccoli and sprouts before bedtime and it won’t be cupid who lifts the duvet several times throughout the night.
Whilst I whole-heartedly embrace the idea that it is not, thankfully, cars that are killing the planet it strikes me that the solution to the cattle-versus-environment problem isn’t to leave them standing around merrily farting all day, but to eat them.
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Jen's secret admirer?
Now I'm not going to deny that I'm a bit of a fan of Jennifer Aniston, star of hit '90's cult-TV American sitcom Friends. It's sort of fair to say that if Jen were to walk in and say "Hey, Mark, let's go," I'd be off like a shot, but I'd just like to make it clear that I'm not some kind of Internet stalking freak and I don't go for all this hot-celeb gossip type thing.
Heat magazine and their competitors simply don't interest me.
And, much as I wouldn't mind getting a bit jiggy with the ex-wife of Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt, I certainly wouldn't even think about stalking her or, for that matter, sit behind her playing with myself whilst she holidayed in Florida. Sort of like the guy in this pic, and similar like it, seems to be doing....
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Growing Old and Bitter
There comes a time in your life when you realise that you are getting older and have to accept that you aren’t, in fact, immortal or destined to look as svelte as Brad Pitt for the remainder of your days.
My best friend and I often lament the passing of our years over cold pints of lager or snippets of telephone conversations when we get the chance. He’s a policeman, I’m a publican and ten years ago I could have hoisted kilns and kegs left right and centre without thinking about it, whilst he could probably have apprehended Ming the Merciless and all his henchmen single-handedly.
Today, I get uncomfortable twinges when I lift a firkin and kilns are beginning to seem beyond the realms of possibility, whilst he sits in his patrol car bemoaning the arrival of middle-age spread. On Saturday I did a bar in a local hall for our cricket club’s annual meal; when I first started doing these bars they were easy – today, I’m still aching from the event.
Yet, like many of us, I still desperately cling on to the tendrils of my youth whilst trying to ignore the fact that I now have to get up three times a night for a pee. Nights out with my mates, though few and far between, involve lager and kebabs because none of us want to admit that a quiet night at home with a cup of tea after the kids have gone to bed is actually more appealing.
And neither do we want to admit that we’d much rather, these days, like to sit in a quiet pub reminiscing about the old days over a well-served pint of beer because, surely, that means we’re getting older. Bitter, we were told in our younger days, is for your dad, or that strange bloke down the street with a beard. If I’d walked in to a pub when I was eighteen and asked for a pint of bitter my mates would probably have laughed me out of town over the top of their fizzing glasses of lager. So I’ve never really got in to the stuff and always shied away from it when I’ve been out socialising.
Sure, I know what a good pint of bitter should look like, I vent and tap away at several barrels a week and make sure the beer is top quality before it goes on the pump. I taste every one of the beers before they’re put on to serve and can definitely tell the difference between a well-prepared bitter and a glass of vinegar, and I’ve noticed over recent months that my lager sales have dropped whilst my bitter sales have, in this lean time, stayed the same if not risen slightly. A group of twenty-somethings even ordered a round of four pints of bitter from me the other day, yet I’ve never developed a hankering for the stuff.
Until last week, that is. Enjoying the opportunity to get for a bite to eat on our own, my wife and I found ourselves at a beautiful riverside pub in Ely, where I was faced with an array of mind-boggling lagers, some of which I thought were only available in Indian restaurants. I wasn’t attracted to any of them but, worryingly, their range of bitters stood out like a glowing beacon.
Steeling myself, I made my choice and ordered a Cajun Chicken baguette to accompany it, before we headed out to sit by the river on a gloriously sunny early April afternoon. “This is really good,” I commented to my wife, referring to the beer, which was going down quicker and smoother than Abi Titmuss. When my sandwich arrived – on brown bread, no less – a thought occurred to me: I’m starting to grow up, and I’m actually quite enjoying it. The midnight trips to the toilet, the estate car on the driveway, and now a wholesome pint of bitter in my hands.
There's only one thing worrying me: it’s my birthday today. And I’m only 36.
My best friend and I often lament the passing of our years over cold pints of lager or snippets of telephone conversations when we get the chance. He’s a policeman, I’m a publican and ten years ago I could have hoisted kilns and kegs left right and centre without thinking about it, whilst he could probably have apprehended Ming the Merciless and all his henchmen single-handedly.
Today, I get uncomfortable twinges when I lift a firkin and kilns are beginning to seem beyond the realms of possibility, whilst he sits in his patrol car bemoaning the arrival of middle-age spread. On Saturday I did a bar in a local hall for our cricket club’s annual meal; when I first started doing these bars they were easy – today, I’m still aching from the event.
Yet, like many of us, I still desperately cling on to the tendrils of my youth whilst trying to ignore the fact that I now have to get up three times a night for a pee. Nights out with my mates, though few and far between, involve lager and kebabs because none of us want to admit that a quiet night at home with a cup of tea after the kids have gone to bed is actually more appealing.
And neither do we want to admit that we’d much rather, these days, like to sit in a quiet pub reminiscing about the old days over a well-served pint of beer because, surely, that means we’re getting older. Bitter, we were told in our younger days, is for your dad, or that strange bloke down the street with a beard. If I’d walked in to a pub when I was eighteen and asked for a pint of bitter my mates would probably have laughed me out of town over the top of their fizzing glasses of lager. So I’ve never really got in to the stuff and always shied away from it when I’ve been out socialising.
Sure, I know what a good pint of bitter should look like, I vent and tap away at several barrels a week and make sure the beer is top quality before it goes on the pump. I taste every one of the beers before they’re put on to serve and can definitely tell the difference between a well-prepared bitter and a glass of vinegar, and I’ve noticed over recent months that my lager sales have dropped whilst my bitter sales have, in this lean time, stayed the same if not risen slightly. A group of twenty-somethings even ordered a round of four pints of bitter from me the other day, yet I’ve never developed a hankering for the stuff.
Until last week, that is. Enjoying the opportunity to get for a bite to eat on our own, my wife and I found ourselves at a beautiful riverside pub in Ely, where I was faced with an array of mind-boggling lagers, some of which I thought were only available in Indian restaurants. I wasn’t attracted to any of them but, worryingly, their range of bitters stood out like a glowing beacon.
Steeling myself, I made my choice and ordered a Cajun Chicken baguette to accompany it, before we headed out to sit by the river on a gloriously sunny early April afternoon. “This is really good,” I commented to my wife, referring to the beer, which was going down quicker and smoother than Abi Titmuss. When my sandwich arrived – on brown bread, no less – a thought occurred to me: I’m starting to grow up, and I’m actually quite enjoying it. The midnight trips to the toilet, the estate car on the driveway, and now a wholesome pint of bitter in my hands.
There's only one thing worrying me: it’s my birthday today. And I’m only 36.
Monday, 14 April 2008
Plumbing Problems
I woke up this morning feeling groggy and under the weather. The weekend has been pretty tough, getting ready for the bar for the annual Cricket Club meal whilst also helping the girls keep the pub running. I worked pretty much twenty hours straight on Saturday, pulled more than a few muscles trying to get the equipment in place for the evening’s bar, and then rounded the night off by getting barmaid Julia slightly drunk on Tequila Rosé. I don’t know why, but it just seemed a fun thing to do at the time.
Eventually I got to bed at 4a.m. on Sunday morning and was back up again at 9 getting the glasses from the night before unloaded from the Jeep and washed and ready to go for the lunchtime session in the pub, where we had every table in the restaurant booked up. Mum brought the children home in the afternoon, we all had a wonderful meal together and then it was time for the evening quiz in the pub. Finally, at midnight last night, I simply had to tell them all to go home – I was bushed.
By the time I got upstairs my legs had gone wobbly and eventually, after resting in the lounge for a bit, I made it to the bedroom, shaking violently and wondering if perhaps I’d pushed myself a bit too hard over the past forty-eight hours.
So the plan today was to take it easy. I woke up to bright sunshine streaming in through the blinds and the sound of Ali screaming at the children who, after a weekend with their Nana, were refusing point-blankly to get ready for school. Jacob was hollering that he needed to watch the telly which, miraculously, wasn’t working because I’d switched it off at the mains, while Malachy simply couldn’t be bothered to put his clothes on.
After some arguing, some bribing and some downright threats (Me: “Jacob, if you don’t put your shoes on you will not be allowed to watch TV this evening”; Jacob: “I don’t want to watch TV this evening, I want to watch it now.”) we eventually got the children across the road and on to the school bus, before I made it back upstairs and collapsed in to a nice, soaking hot bath, from which I hoped I wouldn’t be disturbed for a thousand years.
Clearly, however, I’m not allowed to relax, because it became apparent that something was desperately wrong outside. Raindrops splattered hard against the bathroom window, so I said “Sounds like it’s raining heavily,” to Ali, who pointed out that the sky was bright blue and the sun was riding high. “So where’s all that water coming from?” I asked.
Looking out of the window, she was able to tell me that it appeared to be coming from somewhere above the bathroom. As this pub has two tanks in two separate attics, both above the bathroom, she wasn’t able to tell me which one it was, so I figured it was time to get out and investigate.
It didn’t occur to me not to unplug the bath, so I happily started draining out the water I’d just been relaxing in before pulling on some clothes and sauntering outside to see if I could figure out which tank was over-flowing. Fortunately, it was all draining in to my private garden, which meant the whole incident was hidden from the public, but there was an awfully bad smell starting to emanate from the drains.
Pulling on my wellies, because the ground looked a bit damp, I made my way over to wear the water was pouring on to the ground and saw that one of the drains was backing up. The sudden, and fast, infusion of water in to the drains from the over-flowing header tank and my emptying bath was causing them to back up. First one, then another started to over-flow.
Deciding that this was all beyond my abilities as a plumber (remember the speaker in the Public Bar last year?) I decided it was time to call in Tony and turned to quickly head back in and place the all-important call.
It was at this point that one of the drains decided to burp up the entire contents of the sewer...
Eventually I got to bed at 4a.m. on Sunday morning and was back up again at 9 getting the glasses from the night before unloaded from the Jeep and washed and ready to go for the lunchtime session in the pub, where we had every table in the restaurant booked up. Mum brought the children home in the afternoon, we all had a wonderful meal together and then it was time for the evening quiz in the pub. Finally, at midnight last night, I simply had to tell them all to go home – I was bushed.
By the time I got upstairs my legs had gone wobbly and eventually, after resting in the lounge for a bit, I made it to the bedroom, shaking violently and wondering if perhaps I’d pushed myself a bit too hard over the past forty-eight hours.
So the plan today was to take it easy. I woke up to bright sunshine streaming in through the blinds and the sound of Ali screaming at the children who, after a weekend with their Nana, were refusing point-blankly to get ready for school. Jacob was hollering that he needed to watch the telly which, miraculously, wasn’t working because I’d switched it off at the mains, while Malachy simply couldn’t be bothered to put his clothes on.
After some arguing, some bribing and some downright threats (Me: “Jacob, if you don’t put your shoes on you will not be allowed to watch TV this evening”; Jacob: “I don’t want to watch TV this evening, I want to watch it now.”) we eventually got the children across the road and on to the school bus, before I made it back upstairs and collapsed in to a nice, soaking hot bath, from which I hoped I wouldn’t be disturbed for a thousand years.
Clearly, however, I’m not allowed to relax, because it became apparent that something was desperately wrong outside. Raindrops splattered hard against the bathroom window, so I said “Sounds like it’s raining heavily,” to Ali, who pointed out that the sky was bright blue and the sun was riding high. “So where’s all that water coming from?” I asked.
Looking out of the window, she was able to tell me that it appeared to be coming from somewhere above the bathroom. As this pub has two tanks in two separate attics, both above the bathroom, she wasn’t able to tell me which one it was, so I figured it was time to get out and investigate.
It didn’t occur to me not to unplug the bath, so I happily started draining out the water I’d just been relaxing in before pulling on some clothes and sauntering outside to see if I could figure out which tank was over-flowing. Fortunately, it was all draining in to my private garden, which meant the whole incident was hidden from the public, but there was an awfully bad smell starting to emanate from the drains.
Pulling on my wellies, because the ground looked a bit damp, I made my way over to wear the water was pouring on to the ground and saw that one of the drains was backing up. The sudden, and fast, infusion of water in to the drains from the over-flowing header tank and my emptying bath was causing them to back up. First one, then another started to over-flow.
Deciding that this was all beyond my abilities as a plumber (remember the speaker in the Public Bar last year?) I decided it was time to call in Tony and turned to quickly head back in and place the all-important call.
It was at this point that one of the drains decided to burp up the entire contents of the sewer...
Thursday, 10 April 2008
The Irony of Going Green
Many pub companies, small and large, are currently looking at ways of making their establishments more environmentally friendly and, as more and more outlets look to “go green”, it’s clear that this hot topic is set to linger for a while longer.
Indeed, a tabloid newspaper has announced this week that beer prices could rise dramatically as climate change affects the production of a key grain needed to brew beer, with environmental changes in New Zealand and Australia possibly causing a decline in the production of malting barley.
I’ve long believed that there are two very distinct components to the whole issue of the environment, however: climate change, which is a naturally occurring phenomenon, and global warming, which appears to be a government taxation policy. You only have to look at tax on motorists to understand what I mean.
I drive a 2000 model Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 4.0 litre petrol engine that is neither economical nor politically correct in today’s environment, yet because of its age it is actually cheaper to tax this vehicle than its modern day contemporaries, many of which are probably far cleaner. I don’t drive this vehicle because I want to be some form of motoring anarchist, however, but because it is hugely practical for cash and carry runs, versatile enough to take the kids and their paraphernalia of outdoor activity equipment pretty much anywhere, and supremely luxurious for taking the wife out on a rare evening off. I love it to bits and it’s virtually bomb-proof, yet I know I should change it for something a little bit greener. The trouble is, anything newer and greener will cost more to tax and, because of the rampage on vehicles of this type, it is now utterly worthless. I can’t afford to get rid of it, and because of that I’m not going to.
This doesn’t mean I won’t do my bit to help the environment, however. We used to use the car to take the kids to school every day and do two, if not three, runs to the cash and carry each week as business dictated. I would even shove the tubs of empty glass bottles in to the boot and drive the short distance to the bottle bank to dispose of them, but I no longer do many of these things. Today, the kids catch the bus to and from school every day, and instead of using big plastic tubs I bought a wheelie-bin from a local DIY store and now trudge up the road to the bottle bank with it when it’s full. With the MP3 player blaring in my ears, it’s actually quite a cathartic trip.
My wife and I shopped around for the best deal with suppliers who deliver and even discovered that our nearest cash and carry offered a delivery service for orders over a certain value. Hooked on the need to make our little village pub as environmentally friendly as possible we even found a company who come along each week and take away our disused vegetable oil to turn it in to penguin-friendly bio-diesel.
Suddenly, we seem to be saving a small fortune in petrol and we aren’t wasting precious hours of family time racing back-and-forth between one supplier or another.
I have, however, just worked out that in place of using the Jeep most days, we now get six monstrously large, noxious delivery lorries arriving on our doorstep each week.
You have to love the irony of climate change.
Indeed, a tabloid newspaper has announced this week that beer prices could rise dramatically as climate change affects the production of a key grain needed to brew beer, with environmental changes in New Zealand and Australia possibly causing a decline in the production of malting barley.
I’ve long believed that there are two very distinct components to the whole issue of the environment, however: climate change, which is a naturally occurring phenomenon, and global warming, which appears to be a government taxation policy. You only have to look at tax on motorists to understand what I mean.
I drive a 2000 model Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 4.0 litre petrol engine that is neither economical nor politically correct in today’s environment, yet because of its age it is actually cheaper to tax this vehicle than its modern day contemporaries, many of which are probably far cleaner. I don’t drive this vehicle because I want to be some form of motoring anarchist, however, but because it is hugely practical for cash and carry runs, versatile enough to take the kids and their paraphernalia of outdoor activity equipment pretty much anywhere, and supremely luxurious for taking the wife out on a rare evening off. I love it to bits and it’s virtually bomb-proof, yet I know I should change it for something a little bit greener. The trouble is, anything newer and greener will cost more to tax and, because of the rampage on vehicles of this type, it is now utterly worthless. I can’t afford to get rid of it, and because of that I’m not going to.
This doesn’t mean I won’t do my bit to help the environment, however. We used to use the car to take the kids to school every day and do two, if not three, runs to the cash and carry each week as business dictated. I would even shove the tubs of empty glass bottles in to the boot and drive the short distance to the bottle bank to dispose of them, but I no longer do many of these things. Today, the kids catch the bus to and from school every day, and instead of using big plastic tubs I bought a wheelie-bin from a local DIY store and now trudge up the road to the bottle bank with it when it’s full. With the MP3 player blaring in my ears, it’s actually quite a cathartic trip.
My wife and I shopped around for the best deal with suppliers who deliver and even discovered that our nearest cash and carry offered a delivery service for orders over a certain value. Hooked on the need to make our little village pub as environmentally friendly as possible we even found a company who come along each week and take away our disused vegetable oil to turn it in to penguin-friendly bio-diesel.
Suddenly, we seem to be saving a small fortune in petrol and we aren’t wasting precious hours of family time racing back-and-forth between one supplier or another.
I have, however, just worked out that in place of using the Jeep most days, we now get six monstrously large, noxious delivery lorries arriving on our doorstep each week.
You have to love the irony of climate change.
Saturday, 5 April 2008
It's Not Big, and It's Definitely Not Clever
I swore today. At a customer, over the bar. Actually swore. Yes, I did.
To be fair, however, it was all part of a joke with this particular chap. He once swore at me, inadvertently, when he came in and asked for Frank Sinatra to be played on the pub’s music system. I duly obliged, only to be told by said customer that: “this isn’t Frank Sinatra, you –” and I’ll leave you to fill in the blank, as children may be reading.
He has long since apologised for his outburst and it’s now a regular little joke between the two of us, but today it was my turn to swear at him.
Having decided I was long overdue for a shower, I’d taken the opportunity while it was quiet this afternoon to have a shave, spend some time pampering myself in the bathroom and slap on some aftershave. (Euphoria for Men, by Calvin Klein, if you must know.) Apparently, when I returned to the bar, it was obvious that I had probably bathed in the cologne, rather than just splashed a bit on behind my ears, but I must admit I was totally oblivious to this.
You see, I actually have no sense of smell. I suffer from anosmia brought about by non-allergic rhinitis which, in turn, means you could probably paste my upper lip in manure and I wouldn’t actually be able to smell it. So when I liberally slapped on some of Calvin’s best, I was just a tad unaware that I had splashed on far too much.
Of course, I left and went to the bathroom to sort it out, then walked around in the car park for a bit to try and clear the left over smell, then went to Ali who assured me that my cologne smelled wonderful and not a bit too pongy.
But when I returned to the bar, it was all too easy for my customer to continue laughing and telling me that I still stank. Working on the basis that I had no idea how bad it might smell, he figured he could continue jibing for a little while longer – and I let him, because it was a laugh that was getting a few other customers involved.
After a little while, though, I feigned frustration and leaned across the bar and told him, in no uncertain terms, to you-know-what. Now, I don’t condone gratuitous swearing and have been known to tell one or two customers to kerb their language in the past, especially if it’s obviously upsetting people, so I am usually careful about my own language.
Clearly, however, not only do I suffer from a lack of smell, but the rhinitis must also be affecting my hearing because I thought I’d whispered the curse. Apparently, I hadn’t and, although I thought the pub was relatively empty and that I knew everybody who was in, I hadn’t realised that behind me, at the other bar, was a young mother with her child.
So, if you happen to have been in my bar today and read this, I apologise for swearing and I hope you weren’t too offended.
Or perhaps my friend was just winding me up and I did indeed only whisper it. I have no idea, as I think the alcohol in the aftershave might have been affecting my judgement...
To be fair, however, it was all part of a joke with this particular chap. He once swore at me, inadvertently, when he came in and asked for Frank Sinatra to be played on the pub’s music system. I duly obliged, only to be told by said customer that: “this isn’t Frank Sinatra, you –” and I’ll leave you to fill in the blank, as children may be reading.
He has long since apologised for his outburst and it’s now a regular little joke between the two of us, but today it was my turn to swear at him.
Having decided I was long overdue for a shower, I’d taken the opportunity while it was quiet this afternoon to have a shave, spend some time pampering myself in the bathroom and slap on some aftershave. (Euphoria for Men, by Calvin Klein, if you must know.) Apparently, when I returned to the bar, it was obvious that I had probably bathed in the cologne, rather than just splashed a bit on behind my ears, but I must admit I was totally oblivious to this.
You see, I actually have no sense of smell. I suffer from anosmia brought about by non-allergic rhinitis which, in turn, means you could probably paste my upper lip in manure and I wouldn’t actually be able to smell it. So when I liberally slapped on some of Calvin’s best, I was just a tad unaware that I had splashed on far too much.
Of course, I left and went to the bathroom to sort it out, then walked around in the car park for a bit to try and clear the left over smell, then went to Ali who assured me that my cologne smelled wonderful and not a bit too pongy.
But when I returned to the bar, it was all too easy for my customer to continue laughing and telling me that I still stank. Working on the basis that I had no idea how bad it might smell, he figured he could continue jibing for a little while longer – and I let him, because it was a laugh that was getting a few other customers involved.
After a little while, though, I feigned frustration and leaned across the bar and told him, in no uncertain terms, to you-know-what. Now, I don’t condone gratuitous swearing and have been known to tell one or two customers to kerb their language in the past, especially if it’s obviously upsetting people, so I am usually careful about my own language.
Clearly, however, not only do I suffer from a lack of smell, but the rhinitis must also be affecting my hearing because I thought I’d whispered the curse. Apparently, I hadn’t and, although I thought the pub was relatively empty and that I knew everybody who was in, I hadn’t realised that behind me, at the other bar, was a young mother with her child.
So, if you happen to have been in my bar today and read this, I apologise for swearing and I hope you weren’t too offended.
Or perhaps my friend was just winding me up and I did indeed only whisper it. I have no idea, as I think the alcohol in the aftershave might have been affecting my judgement...
How To Help The Pub Trade, In One Easy Lesson
The beleaguered pub trade needs some help. At the moment, apparently 54 pubs a month are closing (an average of 1.7-something a day) and the trade has an incredibly bad image thanks to just a handful of people. Here are some guidelines I would give the Chancellor if I could have just five minutes of his time:
- Ban supermarkets and other off-trade premises such as garage forecourts from advertising the price of their alcohol. Fair enough, I’ll grant that you can’t govern the price they sell at or how they negotiate their buy-prices, but you can stop them from boasting about it. This would go a long way towards stopping minors and binge-drinkers from constantly being bombarded with cheap alcohol prices.
- Change the age that people can buy alcohol from such off-trade establishments from. Anybody under the age of 21 cannot purchase alcohol from supermarkets, for example, although it would still be legal for 18-21 year olds to purchase from public houses. This would have the effect of helping the pub trade, it would allow those in that bracket to learn to be socially responsible and it would mean that people were drinking in a safe and managed environment, rather than encouraging the young to go and drink copious amounts at home before going out and spoiling the party for everybody else.
- Alter the current tax system to lower the tax for beer sold on-trade. Keg/Cask beer – i.e. beer sold from a pump in a pub – for example, would be eligible to a lower rate of tax than that sold in a supermarket by the bottle. This would give the on-trade a reprieve from draconian taxation that they so desperately need right now and would encourage more people to use their local than drink in solitude at home.
Something similar’s been done for cigarettes in terms of advertising and the age of purchasing them. It’s only a thought, but it might just work...
Thursday, 3 April 2008
How To Make Your Dad Feel Old, by an 8-year-old boy
It’s nice to get a break from the pub from time-to-time and, with it being the Easter holidays, Ali and I took the opportunity to get a couple of days away from the pub and treat the kids to the sights and sounds of London.
“I can’t believe I’m going to London,” squealed Jacob, as excited as any five-year-old can be and completely missing out on the point that going to London means cramped, sweaty tube trains, bendy busses, pigeons and expensive restaurants.
It also means the congestion charge and so, to avoid having to pay Ken’s tax for entering the city, I set the navigation system in the Jeep to route us around the Congestion Charge zone to our destination. This probably meant that we travelled thirty miles further, paid more in petrol and polluted the planet more than if we’d driven right through the centre of town, but at least we didn’t pay the congestion charge itself.
We stayed at the Copthorne Hotel attached to Chelsea Football Club, which is apparently an internationally famous club owned by a rich Russian and where men kick a ball backwards and forwards, every now and then hugging each other when they do something clever with it. I didn’t see any of the football ground. Nor did I see any renowned footballers, but there were a lot of expensive cars lying about and a tour bus full of Japanese children turned up to have a look around while we were there. I thought about signing autographs, but Ali told me that they might actually realise I’m not famous.
After marching the boys from London tourist site to London tourist site and promising Jacob that we’d go and have tea with the Queen, yesterday was spent at the National Science Museum. You have to be grateful that this place is free to get in to because once you’ve paid the £31.50 for all of us to get into an Imax 3D movie about dinosaurs (which Malachy then threw a wobbly about and ran out of) and the £20.00 for two sandwiches, a couple of Cokes and a children’s meal to share – not to mention having to buy souvenirs from the shop – it’s understandable that you’d be a bit miffed if you’d had to shell out a tenner each to get in, too.
It is, however, a wonderful place to go and look around, but be prepared to be made to feel old by your eight-year-old son. In this day of LCD Hi-Def televisions, Sky + and Sony PSP games machines, it’s understandable that he found the Baird T5 mirror TV a little difficult to comprehend.
That wasn’t the worst, however: there was the Speak & Spell which, when my Dad first bought me one, taught me to spell licorice and color incorrectly, and there was the video game Pong, by Atari, that Ali and I found hilarious whilst MJ simply stood there with one eyebrow arched, muttering how boring it looked. (I got to ten before she did, incidentally.)
What really did it for me was when I proudly took him towards a display and pointed to a Sinclair ZX80. “That,” I said nostalgically, “was my first ever computer. I had one of those when I was eight years old.”
Malachy stared at it for a moment, then looked up at me. “Gosh, it looks rubbish!”
“I can’t believe I’m going to London,” squealed Jacob, as excited as any five-year-old can be and completely missing out on the point that going to London means cramped, sweaty tube trains, bendy busses, pigeons and expensive restaurants.
It also means the congestion charge and so, to avoid having to pay Ken’s tax for entering the city, I set the navigation system in the Jeep to route us around the Congestion Charge zone to our destination. This probably meant that we travelled thirty miles further, paid more in petrol and polluted the planet more than if we’d driven right through the centre of town, but at least we didn’t pay the congestion charge itself.
We stayed at the Copthorne Hotel attached to Chelsea Football Club, which is apparently an internationally famous club owned by a rich Russian and where men kick a ball backwards and forwards, every now and then hugging each other when they do something clever with it. I didn’t see any of the football ground. Nor did I see any renowned footballers, but there were a lot of expensive cars lying about and a tour bus full of Japanese children turned up to have a look around while we were there. I thought about signing autographs, but Ali told me that they might actually realise I’m not famous.
After marching the boys from London tourist site to London tourist site and promising Jacob that we’d go and have tea with the Queen, yesterday was spent at the National Science Museum. You have to be grateful that this place is free to get in to because once you’ve paid the £31.50 for all of us to get into an Imax 3D movie about dinosaurs (which Malachy then threw a wobbly about and ran out of) and the £20.00 for two sandwiches, a couple of Cokes and a children’s meal to share – not to mention having to buy souvenirs from the shop – it’s understandable that you’d be a bit miffed if you’d had to shell out a tenner each to get in, too.
It is, however, a wonderful place to go and look around, but be prepared to be made to feel old by your eight-year-old son. In this day of LCD Hi-Def televisions, Sky + and Sony PSP games machines, it’s understandable that he found the Baird T5 mirror TV a little difficult to comprehend.
That wasn’t the worst, however: there was the Speak & Spell which, when my Dad first bought me one, taught me to spell licorice and color incorrectly, and there was the video game Pong, by Atari, that Ali and I found hilarious whilst MJ simply stood there with one eyebrow arched, muttering how boring it looked. (I got to ten before she did, incidentally.)
What really did it for me was when I proudly took him towards a display and pointed to a Sinclair ZX80. “That,” I said nostalgically, “was my first ever computer. I had one of those when I was eight years old.”
Malachy stared at it for a moment, then looked up at me. “Gosh, it looks rubbish!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To This Blog
Posts
All Comments
