Saturday 28 July 2007

Turtles and Cranes

I am writing this post from the Purple Turtle in Reading. This surprises me in a couple of ways. Not because I wasn't aware that I was in the Purple Turtle in Reading - I walked in consciously and intentionally. It is that last fact that is the first of the surprises. You see, the Purple Turtle is lodged in my mind as an Oxford venue, and old loyalties run in the blood, so as a light blue Cambridge type I would have expected it to be full of bad eggs. Now I'm not saying it isn't full of bad eggs, as it may well be, judging by the conversations being held at the neighbouring table. All illiterate and full of references to unsavoury things that might be done to a chap in an athletics changing room (rather laterally, the name Kriss Akabussi keeps on popping up in their alto vocce account of this story). Let me assure you that the hand gestures and demonstrations that accompany the story are unpleasantly broadcast into the corner of my peripheral vision. Classic Oxford stuff. In fact after posting this I must ensure that none of these drunk-on-snakebite ovi maligni mugs me for my laptop.

Anyway, I can hear you wondering how I ended up in this establishment given my stated loyalties and clear emotions on the subject. Rather conveniently, telling you this will bring me on to the second surprise. The Purple Turtle bribes people to cross its threshold with an offer of free wi-fi access and I left my hotel room with my laptop on me specifically in search of such a nugget of good service (gold nugget, not chicken nugget, for your Major does not eat meat or fish for karmic reasons). So here I am. Blogging. In a pub. At the beginning of a Saturday evening. And that is the second surprise.

This is not without explanation. Mrs. Gripe is safely tucked away in a lecture room learning things about using needles on sick people. She is learning acupuncture (not tattoo art, another legitimate interpretation of my description). So I am awaiting the culimnation of her day's learning, and there is only so much a fella (oops, I mean chap - I hope this location is not contagious) can read about Blue Ocean Strategy and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detection Agency before his brain is full and he must download some thoughts to make room for the next pages of both.

My thought is now ready to be downloaded, but before I do, let me pay tribute to the above-mentioned works of art. Dirk Gently is a work of art on its own and also by virtue of coming from the pen of the emeritus Douglas Adams who for me ranks among the greats of authory. Blue Ocean Strategy, although less amusing, is also a gripping book for anyone who wants to know 'How to Create Uncontested Maret Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant'. That is at the core of the Major's employ nnow that he no longer fights wars against mayors on a daily basis.

Anyway, I promised to download a thought - so if you are still reading this, here it is. In photographic form.

This is the rebuild of the Stock Exchange building, as taken through the glass roof of the Major's new daytime barracks. What you can see through the glass, the vaguely swan-like shape, is a full size digger being crane-lifted onto the roof of the building, some 20 (at a guess) floors up.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a professional builder and am not the best qualified to decide how to build a skyscraper, but I like to thing that I have a grasp of the basic rules of the planet that we inhabit. That grasp of those rules, basic or not, tells me that there is unlikely to be much to dig at a height of 20 storeys. And moreover, how can one reconcile the mandatory Health & Safety risk assessment with the need to put chains around a large digger and lift it 20 storeys above a busy road? Answers please, in the comment field. If any answers are possible.

Friday 27 July 2007

Tickety boo

So I was travelling to Halifax earlier in the week, and I got to the station early. Being in possession of a first-class ticket, I decided to go and wait in the lounge. So I went to the lounge, and presented my ticket to enter:

Major: "What ho, my good man. I would like to come in and enjoy your facilities, and rest my tired formerly military feet, please. Here is my ticket to enter."

GNER lackey: "Well you are very welcome. Let me just go through the formality of checking your"

(Leans forward to inspect ticket)

GNER lackey: "I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot let you in. You have the wrong first class ticket."

Major (somewhat perplexed tone): "But aren't all first class tickets valid for the lounge, it being called 'first class lounge' and not 'some of first class lounge'?

GNER lackey (officious monotone): "No, sir. Advance purchase tickets are not valid for the lounge as they are cheaper."

(exit Major, door left)

Now, you will all know that I do not particularly care for railway operators, they make the Major late for his parades and inspections, and their trains are not comfortable. And their excuses are more creative but less credible than ever, such as the recent announcment that the train I was waiting for had been stopped and cancelled "due to overcrowding", which is neither a
valid reason nor a reason that will be solved by pushing all of those passengers off the train on to the next one. But I digress.

I went to check on the price of an open first class ticket to the first station, and it was less than the price of my ticket. Meaning that others who had spent less may have been admitted.

But that's not the real inconsistency. If you have an open ticket, surely you are going to take the first train, rather than wait in the lounge. So the only people who really need the lounge are the ones with advance tickets, who are not allowed in. Which is nice.

I don't know why GNER thought that might be a good idea, but I'd like to find the man who thought of it and shake him firmly by the head.

Thursday 26 July 2007

Railways in good security shocker

Yesterday, according to the BBC, two Daily Mirror journalists were arrested trying to put a fake bomb on a train. They argued that they were just doing it in the interests of investigative journalism - after all, a number of other tabloid stories have been run over the years about lax security. People have smuggled fake bombs on to planes (including one full of marzipan, which apparently smells like semtex), got jobs at Buckingham Palace, that sort of thing.

All well and good, but doesn't the fact that they were arrested suggest that the security worked this time? Which is fantastic news. Therefore, shouldn't the Mirror have stuck to its principles and run the story on its front page today?

Railways in GOOD SECURITY shocker

Britain was in a state of non-SHOCK yesterday as its railways resisted an ATTACK by tabloid journalists with a fake bomb. Security procedures on the railways were found to be TOTALLY EFFECTIVE when the two unnamed terrorists were spotted, and promptly ARRESTED before they could put the non-device on the train.


I might send them the story.

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Flooding the news

I see that the BBC has run a news story about criticism of motorists for stopping their cars to take photos of the floods. Very sound.

But, hang on a minute - isn't this the same BBC that just 24 hours earlier used its news programme to show viewers' photos of the flood, and urged people to send in their photos of the flood so that they too could have their photos, and their name, celebrated in lights?

There's a stench here, and it isn't the floodwaters...

Thursday 19 July 2007

Shilpa Shetty BA (Hons)?

I see that Leeds Metropolitan University has given an honorary degree to Shilpa Shetty. Seriously? Shilpa Shetty? Honorary degree? Am I missing something? What has she ever done, apart from remind the population that they are supposed to hate Jade Goody?

Hoping that this was more than a cheap publicity stunt by a shabby former poly (and a stunt that badly devalues British universities at that), I thought I'd try to find out. So I searched for 'Shilpa Shetty contributions to humanity' on google. And I was reminded of her contribution. She almost caused Richard Gere to be thrown in an Indian prison. One wonders if she should be knighted too.

Wednesday 18 July 2007

Lament for the young

I was trying to use the predictive text mode today to send one of those new-fangled text message thingies. A couple of things disturbed me about the dictionary and what it means for the new generation.

Firstly, Elvis does not come up. This must mean that an entire generation of young people is not expected to have anything to say about, or possibly even any knowledge of, the King. I wonder if they have heard of the Beatles.

Secondly, the word 'Nun' comes up before the word 'Mum'. I can't imagine that a significant enough proportion are contemplating convent entry, so the only explanation can be that text messaging is used more for cheap jokes than for communication about (or with) the nuclear family.

Honestly, the next generation. You do realise, I hope, that your pensions will only be maintained by their contribution to the economy. Start stockpiling the baked beans and solid fuels now...

Saturday 14 July 2007

Here's mud in your... teeth

Given the brief improvement in the weather, I thought that I would take my power-kite and my board on to the heath and have a little play. The wind is gusting quite well and it was a good chance to get some practice in. I bought my kites in January, and the board in March. I am now rather good on the kites (I like to think), but I have not yet mastered the board. I usually manage to get a short way and then realise that I can't yet turn or stop, and I have to jump off.

Today, a burst of courage gripped me, and I brought the kite into the wind. It felt fabulous for a couple of moments, but then I brought it too far into the wind. The next think I knew, I was sliding forward on my belly, with the board behind me. I now have mud all over me, and because the adrenaline gave me a huge grin I also have small clods of earth and grass in my teeth.

Does anyone know of a good instructor? Or, failing that, a good local dental hygienist who gives discounts for weekly visits? Because I am going to need one or the other.

It's that Mayor again

My reader expressed surprise the other day that I had a blog that involved complaining, and he hadn't yet read a complaint about the gripe that he most associates with me - Ken Livingstone. He has sat through many a dinner and many a pub session in which I have waxed lyrical (and somewhat angrily) about the loathsome little man in question.

The reason that there hasn't been so much complaining about him is that Ken is really a zone 1 Mayor, and therefore doesn't affect me as much now that I am in Gripe Hall (Blackheath) as he used to in The Gripe Apartments (next to Tower Bridge). There, your correspondent used to have all sorts of ridiculous detours and fines and nonsense to endure, including when Ken allowed David Blaine to take it upon himself personally to annoy your blogger by sitting in a perspex box suspended outside The Gripe Apartments for some 7 weeks. Ken, not content with taking the Major to tribunal over alleged congestion charge offences (and losing, by the way), decided to allow someone to ruin his summer by putting on his doorstep all sorts of ruffians and ne'erdowells who wanted to make off with his wallet (or, at least, the contents of it).

Yet, just the smallest amount of digging finds that the old leftie has, in fact, now expanded his mission to the area around Gripe Hall and (it appears) is not too far away from a decision that has needled its irksome way into my life.

In particular, getting rid of the northbound tidal contraflow in the Blackwall Tunnel on weekday mornings. The traffic was always bad there, and always extended back beyond Blackheath, turning a 5 minute drive to North Greenwich into a 25-minute one. Now, you are lucky if it is less than an hour to do the simple, 1-mile (or so) journey down the A2 to North Greenwich. And going through Charlton won't help either, as a number of others share Major Gripe's resourcefulness and have had the similar idea.

Why, you might ask, was this decision taken? According to the Mayor's website, it was due to a number of near misses over the last few years. It also states that anyone wishing to see video footage of the near misses can get hold of them by calling a phone number. So, I called the number a few weeks ago and asked for the footage. I was told that I couldn't have it because I wasn't a journalist and therefore had no reason to be interested in it. When I countered that I was interested enough to be researching it on the internet and calling them, and that my reason for wanting to watch it was that I now had plenty of time to fill sitting in the traffic jams caused by the decision, I was met with refusal. I have just checked back and I can no longer find the reference, suggesting that it has been removed. What is there, however, is an article saying that although TfL admits that it should have consulted with the public and with the local boroughs (and admits that it failed to do so), it has made the decision now and so won't open it up to consideration. Thanks for that.

So the reader will be pleased to know that yet again Red Ken has returned to haunt the Major and is right under his skin. Expect future entries on him with which to fuel your nostalgia for my previous rants.

Thursday 12 July 2007

What's the Daily Moan on about this time?

I see (belatedly) that the Daily Mail has led with an article about its moral victory on super casinos being abolished by the new Prime Minister in one of his first acts. A moral victory, says the Moan, because it was against Tony Blair's plans for super casinos, and now they have been canned.

Hang on a minute, isn't this the Moan leading with a front page headline about how it shares an opinion with Gordon Brown? Someone whom it has always detested? Or, in other words, the Daily Mail has led with a front page article about how it agrees with a Labour Prime Minister about something. Forgive me, dear readers*, but I need to check because this must mean that Hell has just frozen over and the image of all of the old guard crying into their steak and kidney puddings about the loss of their daily tract makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.



*I know that there aren't any readers yet, but I hope that one day there will be and that you will be looking back at this post and smiling to yourselves about how unrefined Major Gripe's blogging was at that time.

Cheers for that

The latest announcement from Al Qaeda about how doomed we all are in the UK came at the same time as the sentencing of the wannabe tube bombers. This sort of stuff is all over the news at the moment, with the Metro letters page taken up by a debate between muslims and non-muslims about whether the muslim community should be more vocal in its protests and denunciations of the terrorism that is done in its name. And of course the knighthood for Salman Rushdie, which AQ states as being the driver for its latest threat. So, as ever, I thought that I would share my thoughts on the subject.

Aside of my opinion of him, I fail to see why it was so urgent to knight Salman Rushdie, and the timing of it just adds it to the list of available material for people who believe that there is a western conspiracy against muslims. It is not as if his latest novel took the country by storm or anything. Why knight him if you weren't trying to piss anyone off? I am not arguing that we should have a politically-driven honours system, but surely we should have one that reflects (and is sensitive to) the country that we are in today?

On the other hand, Al Qaeda's use of that as the basis of a threat smacks of playground bickering. Does the fact that they are now scrutinising the Queen's honours list for potential offences mean that they have now forgiven their previous bugbears - the invasion of Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan, and the Israel-Palestine situation? Perhaps they should at least have mentioned that they were still angry about that lot too. Perhaps their next threat will be because not enough supermarkets stock halal food - the ultimate in consumer activism. Rather than picking the causes that most matter to them, Al Qaeda is still picking the most topical issue of the day, without regard to the importance of that issue, simply to get the greatest opinion (and presumably the most recruits). As he has now finished his diary, perhaps Alastair Campbell is now their minister without portfolio?

Wednesday 11 July 2007

I'm not hugging these hoodies

We came home yesterday and found our building's gardening company at work in the grounds. They aren't the best gardeners, but they do a reasonable job for the money. Anyway, they now have a couple of younger guys working for them, who I estimate to be between 16 and 18. Anyway, these two went on to turn in the following performance:

  • Smoking in our stairwell, stinking it out
  • Shouting and swearing when walking around the flat
  • Leering at Mrs Gripe (understandable given her beauty but not really acceptable)
  • 'Pruning' by walking along the edges of the lawn with a hedge-trimmer cutting off anything that overhung, including the flowers

Suffice to say that I wasn't very happy. It occurred to me that their behaviour (vandalising plants, illicit smoking, leering, shouting and swearing) was such that we would have called the police, if we hadn't been paying them. The youth of today...

Tuesday 10 July 2007

No complaining, just happiness

Sorry, fans of carp. There is to be no complaining today, just warm fluffly positivity. You see, I had a productive day of achieving milestones at work yesterday, followed by a jolly pleasant evening at home in Gripe Hall with Mrs Gripe and a delicious curry. And now I have the day off, and the sun is shining. What sort of person would I be if I could find something to bellyache about in that?

I'll tell you - a whingeing windbag. And no-one wants to be that, not even for an audience.

Sunday 8 July 2007

The most insensitive ad ever?

Mrs Gripe and I went to Whitstable for a day out yesterday. We hadn't been before - it's a nice place. Good to get some fresh air and sunshine (rather vindicating my last post). I can recommend it.

When we came back, our post had been delivered. In addition to the various begging letters from lombardy pirate banking houses, and the offers of free money for a year from credit mongerers, was an advert from Norwich Union for their Accidental Death Benefit Policy (see scans of the advert to the left).

Now I'm not one to be squeamish, but isn't it a bit f$!£ing rude to be sending me something like this to open, bleary eyed, over my cornflakes? This is something that basically says "you've just come downstairs, haven't you? You were lucky this time, but you probably won't be next time, you careless twat...". Mrs Gripe, always protective of me, was horrified by the possibility and couldn't even be consoled by my indication that there are no stairs in our flat for me to fall down. So she went on the interweb to do some research, to soothe her worries:



  • According to government figures, there are 4,095,236 males aged 25-34 in the UK. Out of these men, 50 died last year from any type of fall.

  • That means that 0.001% of my demographic die from falls.

  • Based on their quote of £1.99 per month for £20,000 of cover, they would earn £23.88 per policy per year, and would have to pay out £0.24 per policy per year, or a loss ratio of 1.0%.

Needless to say, the yellow twats have not quoted me happy this time.

Thursday 5 July 2007

Sleeves up

Right, enough pleasantries. On with the complaining.



It appears, according to the infallible sages of meteorology, that there is only going to be one day of summer this year - July 15th. "There", they are saying, "get used to it. Don't come crying to us if your picnic is ruined and your sandwiches soggy. We warned you." All well and good, but if they can predict the weather 3 months ahead with such astonishing accuracy, why in the name of all that is temperate didn't they think it would be a good idea, maybe, to mention to the good people of Yorkshire that they might be in for a bit of a drenching? Or maybe even volunteer to fill a few sandbags and deposit them on people's doorsteps?

So, one fun-killing report but nothing actually useful like helping flood victims to prepare in advance. Which leads me to wonder - when was the last time you stopped your local weatherperson in the street and asked them to give a breakdown of the accuracy of their forecasts? It's been a fair while for me. Is it possible that some meteorologist sat down to his cornflakes, decided that he wasn't famous enough, and decided to make an outlandish claim to make the morning free paper, knowing that he would never be called to account? Maybe?

Nonetheless, this does appear to be an unusually prologned and unseasonal (Wimbledon aside - perhaps it's their fault for removing the roof from centre court?) bout of rain. Maybe there is some longer term weather pattern or change in climate that is beginning to happen. Someone should look in to that.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my new blog. I'm sure everyone says that but it's pretty much the only option. Anyway, this blog is going to be a mix of whinges and bellyaching with writing about nice things as well. I called it this because I tend to get thoughts stuck in my head.

I haven't blogged before, so I'll get better at this as I go along. Anyway, here's a little bit about what you're likely to see on this blog (no guarantees):

  1. Stuff about Mrs. Gripe - we're very much in love
  2. Things that I think are a rip-off
  3. Pontificating about local stuff - I live in Blackheath in SE London, UK
  4. Thoughts on various things - current affairs etc.
  5. Things about business - particularly strategy
  6. Opinions about Greenwich Council and the sorts of things that they do
  7. Whimsical stuff

I think that just about covers it. Enjoy - and please comment on whatever you like, or suggest things for future whinges.