Saturday 28 February 2015

That was the week, that was.

I would like, if I may, to take you on a journey.

This week has been a long week for many reasons.  A lot of them are to do with work so obviously I can't talk about them, other than to say 'aaarrrrgghhhhh, pass the alcohol', but there have been other things too.

Early in the week I opened the boot of the car, for some reason it didn't go right up and I managed to smack my head off the boot catch.  After wobbling around the Tesco car park for a minute or two I checked that there was no blood and carried on to work.

The next morning, washing and brushing my hair was fun.  Not.

Thursday I had had my shower and was cleaning my teeth, as my bathroom is quite small, the sink overhangs the bath.  I heard a rustling noise and then the shower curtain, complete with rail fell down, the end of the rail hitting me on the back of the head.



Friday I thought I had escaped without injury, but when I got into my pyjamas I found a mystery bruise.  No idea where from.

This morning I went to do my big shop and was at Asda for 7.30am.  Apart from buying a seemingly inordinate amount of tinned goods the shopping went as planned.  On the way back I cut through a side road to avoid an incredibly busy and confusing roundabout, it saves so much time and horn blowing.  

I rounded a bend to find a Police car in the middle of the road and Police lining the pavements, every car was waved to a stop.  Apparently a foreign student has gone missing and they were questioning all motorists.

What???

Vulnerable people go missing and I NEVER see any sign of a local investigation, but a young, healthy, foreign student goes missing, it could well be by choice if they do not want to go back home, and people are stopped and questioned.  I hope nothing has happened to them, but if I had info I would go to the Police, I wouldn't need to be stopped with frozen food in the boot.

It may just be another side to my black and white life, but my parents were not impressed when I told them having been victims of crime themselves twice in the past with very little support from the Police (once was a burglary, the other burning matter was pushed through the letterbox).

I am hoping next week will be better.


Monday 23 February 2015

The West Midlands is the top spot for gun crime in England and Wales.

I heard this on a news bulletin whilst I was on my way home from work.  What surprised me was not the headline itself but people's reactions to it.

As is the way of local news providers, reporters had gone out to get the views of the people on the street.  One person said that she thought that the Police were not doing enough to help families.

Why is up to the Police to raise people's children for them?  Why does everything have to be someone else's fault?  Can people no longer take responsibility for anything?

For the most part, and there will always be exceptions I know, the attitudes of the child come from the attitudes of the parent.

Maybe the courts and prisons need to become tougher, with the threat of a prison service acting as a deterrent instead of the holiday camps they appear to have become with TVs in cells, PlayStations, being able to sue the Prison Service for having a too thin mattress


Why did we spend,  in 2013, up to £275 per day per prisoner when, according to the NHS, the average cost of a hospital bed day is £225?  Are people who have broken the law worth more than a law abiding person who had the misfortune to fall ill?

Take the prisons back to basics, 3 healthy meals a day but no menu choice - you eat what you are given or you go hungry.  Remove the TVs and the PlayStations.  Reduce time the prisoners have for socialising.  Stop supplying extra clothes.  Remove prisoner's Human Rights.  If prisoners riot and damage their cells, then let them carry on living in it.  Dirty Protest?  They sleep in it.

And use all the money saved to buoy up the NHS.

Saturday 21 February 2015

How will The Walking Dead end?

I don't know how many more seasons there will be in The Walking Dead, but whilst I was catching up on this week's episode I started to wonder, how will it end?  As far as I can see, it has to be in one of 4 ways.



  • Our little band of merry men and women will succumb to the virus and become Walkers.  This would be either because they have become tired and careless after months/years of surviving by moving from place to place and get bitten or there is another bout of the flu-like illness which triggered the virus already inside everyone.
  • They reach Washington which has become a self-sufficient fortress, after being quarantined they are accepted into the community and live happily ever after.
  • They reach Washington and are shot on sight as the city cannot support any further survivors.
  • They are met on the road by a military convoy who are vaccinating everyone with a serum discovered by scientists and settle into the nearest town to start rebuilding their lives.

Although, as long as the final episode doesn't reveal them all to be already dead (think of the years wasted on Lost) I will be happy.

How do you think it will end?


Saturday 14 February 2015

The day that all the iPhones go down......

.....will be a glorious day.

We will be able to walk about freely not having to listen to everyone's overloud telephone conversations.

We will be able to walk about taking in the scenery instead of having to dodge people texting and expecting others to walk around them.  I have to admit, I don't do this, if someone is on a collision course with me as they cannot tear their eyes away from their phone I just stand still.  

Shopping will be a breeze, no more queueing behind people at the self scan tills who are trying to scan, pack and pay with one hand as they are using the other to clamp their iPhone to their ear.



We will be able to have face to face conversations with people without them constantly checking their phones every 10 seconds.

I know it will never happen.

But I can dream.


Friday 13 February 2015

Yes, I've read 50 Shades, no, I won't be watching the film.

I read the book to see what all the fuss was about and I have to admit that I was disappointed, and as I always seem to prefer the original book to any films made I won't be wasting my money.



Nor do I want to be the sad, billy-no-mates sitting in a theatre packed with over excited couples.

I was actually very disappointed with the the sex scenes in the book, they  were actually quite tame and nothing over the top.

I did not like Christian Grey at all, I thought he was an arrogant bastard who deserved a good beating, and not in anyway that he would have liked.  He was the sort of person who, had he attended Oxford, would definitely been a member of the Bullingdon Club.

I didn't like his mother for letting him grow up into the tosser he did.

I didn't like Anastasia (I had to google her name) for allowing herself to be bullied into the 'relationship'.  And, yes, I know that in a Dom/Sub relationship it is the Sub who has all the power, blah, blah, blah, but that is when the Sub goes into the situation willingly.  Anastasia was bullied into it.

The only person who I grew any sort of affection for was the bodyguard, Jason Taylor.  He actually seemed like someone I could have spent time with.  And whoever is playing him in the film will be the wrong choice as far as I am concerned.

A book that I much preferred to 50 Shades was 50 Shades of Alice in Wonderland, an amazing parody which will have you laughing out loud as well as being quite rude.



Will you be watching the film?




Saturday 7 February 2015

Am I being too hard on people?

As you know, my life is very black and white, something is either right or wrong, and my current annoyance is people acting like weak kittens when they are a bit ill.

I know I complain when I get colds, especially when they seem to go on forever, but I still get on with my day. But so many people seem to be having time off for the smallest things - a cold, a sore neck.  I can't remember the last time I had time off work, certainly it hasn't been in the last 6 years.

I've worked with people who start laying the groundwork for a few days off sick a couple of days in advance, and you know exactly what they are doing.



I have days when I struggle to wash my hair because I can't hold my arms above my shoulders for more than a few seconds at a time.  But I just get on with it and go to work.

I have occasional episodes during the day when I suddenly feel drained and cannot talk without slurring my words, and cannot walk in a straight line making me appear drunk.  These episodes last about 15 minutes and then as fast as they come on, they go, but again, I just get on with it.

I have panic attacks, mostly in the middle of the night, which last a couple of hours at a time, they wake me and I can't go back to sleep as I am convinced that if I lay down I will stop breathing.  Recently I have started having them during the day as well.  But I still just get on with my work day.

I have days when I shake for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Am I the oddity?  Getting on with my day as normal regardless of how I feel?  Should I start taking time off whenever I feel under the weather?