HIRE CAR

While my car was in the garage having some repairs done to it,i had to hire a hire car to get myself to and from work.After two days in the garage my car was finally ready for collection,so i took the hire car back.In the hire car office the girl who was serving me was getting all the relevant paperwork together for me to sign,and then i could be on my way.While she was still sorting out the paperwork she asked me,
How did i find the car?
'what do you mean,how did i find the car' ,i said, 'i never lost it,i came out of my house this morning and there it was, exactly where i had left it the night before',
'no,you misunderstood me' she said, 'what i meant was how did you find the car to drive' ?' but isn't that the same question' i asked her again,'only this time you seem to be emphasising the word you, you don't even know me and now you're implying that I'm incapable of parking a car in the evening and then locating the same car in the morning in the place where i had parked it,the night before ?
'if you could just sign here that'll be all' she sighed !

STOCKTAKING

After two days of counting thousands of tiles,we finally finished stocktaking at work today.I hate stocktaking,always have done,but its something that has to be done. I've come to a few conclusions today,one is that counting tiles in a container while the wind is blowing snow in your face is as depressing as being forced to watch an episode of Eastenders,two,trying to use a calculator,phone drinking a cup of coffee,or anything else for that matter, with gloves on is impossible and finally,people who name products are slightly bonkers.I say this as i came across a range of tiles today called 'Fun'.Now don't get me wrong its a nice looking tile and comes in three different colours,Beige,Green and Blue,but the problem i have is that when i look at this particular tile, or any tile,i don't think fun !To me fun is a holiday, or a night out, not a tile.Surely the whole point of naming something is to give it an identity, to reflect either the way it looks or the way it makes you feel,i cant see that a tile looks fun or would make you feel fun,so my only conclusion as to why someone would give it the name fun was because they were either pissed,or hadn't taken their medication !

DOUBLE GLAZING

Why do double glazing companies phone at such ridiculous times in the evening trying to sell you double glazing ?Because they're physic.They know that you are sat there at nine o clock in the evening with your feet up in front of the tele,enjoying a nice glass of wine,relaxing after another tedious day at the office or stuck in traffic,when it suddenly occurs to you that there was something you needed to do at nine o clock,but what was it ? of course,that was it,you need to have double glazing fitted to your house and you need to phone a double glazing company right this very minute to sort it out,this was far too important to leave until normal hours of business.But because they already knew that you were thinking this by using their physic powers, the phone rings and as if by magic its a friendly double glazing salesman,amazing!!

CHRISTMAS

I was talking to someone today about Christmas and we were both having a whinge about how expensive everything was (Baa Humbug) and how Christmas wasn't the same as it used to be.(we've reached the age where everything was better when we were younger)I just happened to say that the visiting of family and friends over the Christmas period was hard work.When she eventually stopped laughing at that comment,she said,
'a bloke moaning about how hard Christmas is,do you do any shopping or cooking at Christmas?'.
Point taken !!

MY MATE

A friend of mine is still single and has never married,even though he is now 44.For some reason whenever he meets a new woman he never tells her his real age.This had never been a problem before,as his relationships tend not to last very long.That is until one day he told his usual lie to a girl,but became quite smitten by her.After seeing each other for a few months and with the lie still continuing, they decided to book a holiday.Eventually the day of their 2 week break in the sun finally arrived and at the airport they were both in high spirits and very much looking forward to their first holiday together.Reaching the front of the check-in queue,my mates girl friend,who was holding both their passports,handed them over to the check-in girl and as she did,she happened to catch sight of the date of birth on his passport,
'Sorry,I've just noticed on my boyfriends passport,that his date of birth is wrong ,it says that he was born in 1965 instead of 1975,would that be a problem?'she asked the check-in lady.
But,before the check-in lady could answer and so as not to cause a scene,my mate,who was by now bright red and extremely embarrassed,had to step in and explain to the both of them that the passport was in fact correct and that he had lied about his age.He then had to show his driving licence to prove that he had i.d with matching dates of birth on.His girlfriend was not impressed with his lie,the holiday did go ahead,but for some reason the relationship ended quite quickly on their return.
Is he still lying about his age.?
Unfortunately the ageing process has caught up with him,he only says that hes five years younger than his actual age now !

FROZEN TURKEYS

At a company i used to work for,it was a tradition that on the last working day before it closed for Christmas, we used to get given a 12 pound frozen turkey each,as a gesture of thanks for all our hard work during the year.It was also a tradition of ours to go straight from work on that last day across the road to the local pubs for a Christmas drink or two.We all knew that we were going to receive this turkey, but none of us ever made any plans for getting it home,we couldn't leave it at work as the premises were locked for the christmas holidays as soon as we left them.I was given a frozen turkey,four Christmas's in a row and i never managed to get one home, neither did any of the other four fellas that i regularly drank with.We would start in the first pub, all sat round a table to begin with, our turkeys sat next to us in their own chairs,then we would go onto another pub with our turkeys slowly defrosting under our arms, by the third pub we had become so fond of our frozen birds,that they now had names,but,by the time we had reached the final pub,which was 2 miles from where we started and about 8 hours later,they had gone.In 4 years only one turkey ever made it to the final pub,and for a while it looked like it was going home,it wasn't in a fit state to go home,but it had been on one hell of an adventure,something to tell his mates,if only we knew where they were,but unfortunately it wasn't to be for that little fella,as he was last seen being used as a football by half the pub at closing time.And whatever happened to all the other turkeys as those nights progressed, is sadly,still a mystery !

GREASE IS THE WORD

Grease, a classic 1970s film set in a 1950s American high school (with lots of singing).When it first hit the big screen in the late 70s it was the film to see, so off we went to watch it at the local cinema.We had seen Olivia newton john or (neutron bomb) as we used to say,on Top of the Pops singing 'you're the one that i want' in those tight trousers and that was all the encouragement we needed to get us there.During the opening scenes Sandy and Danny are having fun on the beach, the waves are crashing onto the beach, in the background theres a big orchestral score going on, and then Sandy turns to Danny and says 'oh Danny, is this the end' to which a bloke in the cinema shouted out 'I bloody hope not love, its just cost me a quid to get in here'!

CAR SHAMPOO

Whilst washing my van the other day,i noticed that the car shampoo i was using was lemon scented!For whose benefit is the smell of lemons in a car shampoo for ? ours or the cars!If its for the cars benefit,who on earth thought it necessary to have the outside of a car smelling of lemons once its been washed!If theres a surplus of lemons in the world why waste them on a fragranced car shampoo, why not put them to a better use,stick some alcohol in it and bring back two dogs(alcoholic lemon flavoured drink!!).But please don't waste them on making a car shampoo.

24 HOURS FROM TULSA

The Gene Pitney song, '24 hours from Tulsa', has always baffled me.The first line,'Dearest, darling, i had to write to say that i wont be home anymore', why would he even consider writing to her,why didn't he just phone her. As a means of communicating with someone quickly,writing isn't the first thing that comes into your head,('Darling don't forget to order those tickets for the theatre tomorrow night', 'okay dear,I'll just write them a letter'!! )By the time it took him to find a pen and paper,and who can ever find an envelope and stamp when you need one, sit down and write some old rubbish about how he was only 24 hours away from her arms, but then met someone new, that letter would have taken days,maybe weeks to reach the poor girl.And what if the postmen were on strike or even worse, it had got lost in the post, for all we know, she could be still sat in Tulsa to this very day waiting for him to turn up !!!

REMEMBRANCE DAY

The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke

If i should die, think only this of me;

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped,made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

And think,this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day

And laughter, learnt of friends ;and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Remembering all the service men and women,of this Great Britain, both past and present and all their families on this remembrance day, whose courage ,bravery and dedication are a lesson to us all.

BALL JUGGLER

The half time entertainment was your typical lower league offering of cheerleaders shaking their pom, poms and the team mascot walking round the perimeter of the pitch shaking hands with the youngsters in the crowd.Typical that is, until some young fella walked into the centre circle and started a 10 minute keepy upy, or ball juggling routine, using every part of his body apart from, obviously, his hands.He was unbelievably good, flicking the ball up in the air and catching it on his back, he had it balanced on his head, at one point he was sitting on the ground, legs outstretched still juggling, the ball just seemed to stick to his body like glue, you just couldn't take your eyes off him.Its hard to imagine the hours of practice and dedication that this young fella had invested in perfecting this skill, but obviously just by watching him you could see that all that time and effort had paid off. And after 10 minutes of juggling that was it, his routine over apart from the finale. Juggling the ball from the halfway line towards the goal,waving to the crowd and taking in the deserved applause as he went,it was obvious to everyone watching what he was going to do.So there he was 6 feet away from the goal, a final wave to the crowd, a final flick of the ball up in the air for a volley straight into the back of the net and .oh my God hes missed the goal,all 8 feet tall and 24 feet wide from 6 feet away, he was 6 feet away in the centre of the goal and he didn't just kick the ball over, he volleyed it wide of the post ! This young fella who could make the ball do whatever he wanted couldn't find the back of the net with the help of a sat nav, the line between success and failure is a thin one,and he well and truly crossed it,he would have probably fallen over it, if it was real, because whatever he had done in the previous 10 minutes was now well and truly forgotten. The crowd were briefly stunned and silent and then it started,he had the stuffing well and truly ripped out of him by all the fans in the stadium, this poor lad was now leaving the pitch, not to the applause and admiration that he rightly deserved and should have been receiving, but to laughter and taunts , as the bloke behind me at the time shouted out 'oi mate, you should have gone to specsavers' !

MOBILE PHONES

'Wait till your father gets home and hears what you've been up to'. A favourite saying years ago to instill the fear of God into you and it did, especially if it was said early enough in the day so that you had all day to worry about your dads return. Dads were used, rightly or wrongly, as a figure of discipline, someone you feared. He would normally leave for work before anyyone else was up and he wouldn't have a clue what was happening within his household until he came back through the front door again in the evening.Fast forward to the present day . The saying wait till your father gets home is no longer relevant in today's society, i can leave my house at 8 in the morning and hear my daughter having a strop,live from the comfort of my van, on my journey into work, I'm told the minute my son treads in the only piece of dog turd in the world ,not to have been picked up by the dogs owner, and walked all through my house as its actually happening ! And all thanks to the most intrusive gadget ever invented, the mobile phone ! But thank God for its invention, because thousands of Dads up and down this great land of ours now know whether its safe or not to go straight home or to the pub until the kids are safely tucked up in bed !

RUBBISH

I was trying to think of a few things that have drastically changed over the past 30 years, obviously there have been major changes of governments, political systems, etc, but i was thinking more day to day stuff like rubbish ! When i was a kid back in the 70 s, anything other than household rubbish was taken to the local landfill site or tip as it was commonly known, all you did once you was in the tip was pull up anywhere and chuck your rubbish onto the side of the road, legal fly tipping basically, where it would be collected and thrown into a large hole in the ground. Recycling isn't a new thing as many a time we used to come back from the tip with more then we took, especially if you needed a bike frame or some pram wheels for your go-cart ! Now its a day out if you go the recycling centre with a car full of different types of rubbish, there are so many different hoppers for all kinds of rubbish, and don't even think about trying to mix your clean dirt with your dirty dirt, because the friendly and oh so helpful (sarcasm) on site rubbish police will be down on you like a ton of Eco friendly manure ! Another thing that hasn't really stood the test of time are breakers yards, they're still about, but a diluted and watered down version of how they used to be.Many a Saturday afternoon was spent under the bonnet of a hillman avenger, which was balanced on top of a Morris marina, which in turn was on top of a mark 2 cortina, ratchet in one hand, hammer in the other, you couldn't hold onto anything because you needed both hands free to work, so there we were a cross between a circus balancing act and a deranged baboon. 3 cars high, up in the air trying to make a frightening jog even more frightening by trying to relieve the engine of its mountings. In todays breakers they take the parts out for you, they've got parts all cleaned up and on the shelf all ready to go, wheres the fun in that !

CONVERTING

Sitting watching the football on t.v the other night with my son, he made a comment about a player being yards offside.I asked him why he had said yards offside,instead of saying that the player was metres offside,as i thought that they were now all taught metric at school, he said that it was because his teacher always says yards offside during games at school. I wondered if its something that's us Brits exclusively do,or does any other nation have to convert measurements,weights etc,it just seems to me that we are constantly converting something , the weather comes on the t.v and the forecaster says that its going to be 27 Celsius tomorrow,27 Celsius is that hot ? what is it in Fahrenheit ? You're on holiday and something costs so many euros, dollars whatever, and straight away you're trying to convert it back into pounds, It doesn't seem to register that you're in a different country and if you want to buy it,its going to cost whatever the seller is asking for it, in his currency. Another one is feet and inches, its all supposed to be metres and centimetres now, but it isn't, its a mixture of both, whenever i go into the timber yard for work i always ask for a sheet of 8 foot by 4 foot, 6 millimetre ply !Petrol is priced in litres, but beer is still sold in pints, any application form now wants to know how tall you are in metres and how much you weigh in kilos, but you're still working in feet and inches and stones and pounds. Is it any wonder that life's so confusing, and then, just when you think that you've encountered every conversion there is, suddenly theres a new kid on the block in the form of school years, where the hell did that come from, I'm now having to convert what years at school my kids are in !

MY SON

My son is 11 and just started secondary school in september, he keeps coming home from school telling me all these different things hes learnt, knowing that i haven't got a clue what hes going on about.He can count up to 100 in both french and german, although he didn't know when i asked him what number in german zigazigargh was, it was great watching him trying to work it out, before finally admitting defeat and giving up, only to be told it wasn't a number at all,but actually the end to a spice girl song.!So the other day he came home from school and said 'did you know that during the first world war some british and german soldiers one christmas eve stopped fighting and played a game of football against each other in no mans land'He had a look of satisfaction on his face as if he had just served an ace to win wimbledon, game, set and match, so when i said yes i did know that,and did he know that Sir Paul Mc cartney had written a song about it back in the 80s called 'pipes of peace, he was Crest fallen, he walked out of the kitchen like a man who had just put everything on red, only for it to come in black, it didn't end there though, because as usual he had to have the last word, 'that football match during the first world war,i bet you dont know what the score was' !!

HALF THE FUN

Something i noticed on eBay the other day, someone was selling fast passes for the rides at Disneyland Paris and part of his sales pitch went like this, 'what is the most precious thing on earth ? answer, time, so if you spend half the amount of time you normally spent queuing for the rides at Disneyland Paris you get half the fun'!! Now i didn't do very well at school, but if you queue for half the time, shouldn't that be for double the fun, or do they stop the ride halfway round, 'get off you've had half your fun'.So using that formula, what if you knew someone who worked at the park and they could get you onto the rides without queuing at all, would that mean that you had no fun !

This is my t.v

Growing up in the 70's as i did, we had one black and white t.v in the front room . There wasn't really any confrontation about someone wanting to watch something different to anyone else because there was only 3 channels to choose from, the only confrontation we had was when my dad came home from work in the evening and if the t.v wasn't on BBC1 for the news he would just change the channel over, it didn't matter if you had been watching something for the past 2 hours and there was only 30 seconds left he would just turn it over.Obviously we would complain, but he would come out with the same old line, 'when you're older and have a house of your own and pay all the bills, then you can watch whatever you want,untill then, this is my tele and i want to watch the news' end of story.I'm now 44 years old with my own house, paying all the bills and i still cant watch what i want, only now its the kids who are dictating to me when i can watch it.Even my dad came round one sunday afternoon, walked straight into the front room, looked at the t.v , made some comment about me not watching the grand prix, asked me to change the channel over so that he could watch it, and do you know what , i did !!

PIGS WITH 3 EARS !

Driving around all day, as i do in my job,you come across some pretty unusual sights,people and signs.One of the funniest signs i've seen was on the side of a farm building advertising what was for sale in the farm shop. The bit that got me thinking was the 'pigs ear's, 3 for a pound'!Don't they normally come in pairs, what happened to the other one? or is there a secret farm somewhere that;s breeding a super pig with 3 ears .