My wife has been trying to get her name transferred on a bank account for a charity to replace somebody who died last year. After numerous visits to banks and meetings she spent much of yesterday afternoon hanging onto a recorded message that went on and on and on. She eventually did get through and the person on the other end was helpful but what a waste of time hanging on the telephone is.
We all know how frustrating these recorded messages are and it is one reason two of us refused to open a bank account for the Friends of Hethersett Library. After filling in numerous forms and making numerous phone calls we just gave up in frustration.
We are volunteers in these things and do not have the time to waste listening to recorded messages or filling in forms ad nauseam. And the upshot of this kind of thing is that hundreds of volunteers all over the county scream with frustration and say "Enough is enough I just cannot be bothered to carry on with this." There is a limit to how long you can spend listening to a recorded message telling you how sorry they are that you can't get through. They often tell you how important your call is to them. On a number of occasions I have just given up in frustration and anger.
My wife also had to wait almost an hour to get a bus from Hethersett back to the village yesterday. The bus driver when a bus did arrive was less than polite and pointed out quite rudely that the previous bus had broken down (almost as if she should have known this). I have commented before on the number of buses that are breaking down. It used to be a rare occurrence but now seems to be an all too regular one. I couldn't help thinking about the buses I caught when I was at school. Every morning I had a three miles bus journey to school in Norwich. I don't ever remember a bus not running or my being late for school.
We are getting more and more people coming to live in Norfolk at a time when services are getting worse and worse (that's if they aren't being withdrawn altogether). My wife was so angry that she has written to our MP Richard Bacon pointing this out. Of course we don't expect a response. It will just join all the other e-mails he hasn't responded to. The letter did point out the futility of having a hospital that is so stretched that patients are being discharged and sent to hotels in order to free up beds. Yes you read that correctly and it has appeared in the Media, so isn't something we have made up.
The hospital, doctors' surgeries and many other organisations/groups/businesses cannot cope with the population they are serving now and, despite this, the Government continues on its destructive path of building tens of thousands of new homes without improving the infrastructure. To me this makes no sense whatsoever. But of course money always talks. I have a 50p that talks to me regularly.
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My other threequarters mentioned over the weekend that they are going to cut back on those ridiculous messages you get on public transport.
The two that really annoy me are the ones you get on Greater Anglia trains. There you are nice and cosy and warm on a train to or from London and you decide it's time for a nice little snooze. After all it breaks up the journey and prevents you having to view Ipswich through the window.
You are just drifting off when the message comes over very loud and very clear.
"If you see or find anything suspicious contact (then follows a telephone number). Remember See It, Say It, Sort It."
I bet that took a committee, a sub committee and a working party to come up with that slogan with all the Ss. Health and Safety were probably involved and there would have been a risk assessment. Hopefully this is one of the pointless slogans that will be leaving our world.
The other one that really annoys is "Please remember to take all your belongings with you when you leave the train."
As if anyone ever deliberately leaves anything on the train (unless of course its something that needs to be seen, said and sorted). I can just see a couple getting off. "Have you got everything darling" says the husband to his other threequarters.
"Yes thank you," she replies. "It's a good job we got that message about remembering to take everything with us. Without that I would probably have forgotten to take the suitcase off the train."
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I currently subscribe to a beer club which is a good way of trying out different beers from all over the world. The latest batch comes from Scotland. Every other month I get eight cans (there is an occasional bottle) which usually features four or five different IPAs and a couple of stouts or porters.
I am a dark beer kind of person. Lagers are ok if you want a quick alcoholic hit and something light but if you want to savour a rich taste you have to go for the darker ales and the words porter and stout conjure up times gone past. I can see Sam Weller the servant from Pickwick Papers standing at a wayside inn with a foaming tankard of porter in his hands.
Occasionally my beer packages throw up (probably not a good phrase to use when describing alcohol) a fruit beer and there was an American selection not so long ago that had a wheat sour beer. Let's just say it was different. Let's just say it was horrible. Not only was it bitter, it was sour as well.
When it comes to alcohol I am what is known in the family as a lightweight. I can go weeks without a drink and could easily go T Total although I see no purpose in so doing. I enjoy the occasional pint, the even more occasional gin and tonic and that's about it. I would admit to an occasional Baileys but that would destroy the macho effect of being a real man.
So eight smallish tins from a beer club do me well. I'm still waiting for a slightly sweeter porter or stout though. Do you remember the days of Mackeson and Cream Label Stout?
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Yesterday's walk was around nine miles and went from Hethersett to the nearby town of Wymondham which is about three miles away and included the usual delightful wander with cousin Belinda that took us, as usual, to the delightful Courtyard Cafe where good old Mick had saved the best cheese scone for me. It might have been coincidence but I got the one with all the crispy bits of cheese on it!
One thing I noticed on the walk back was that something had shed a load of mud on the B1172 road. It was all over the road and quite a bit of the pavement. I remember when I worked for the police, mud on the roads was one of the biggest complaints we had.
There is a path in Wymondham that leads through a very small wooded area and there hanging from a tree (cue for spooky music) was a Teletubby. It was the purple one, better known as Tinky Winky. Perhaps our market town is being taken over by marauding Teletubbies. The other explanation is that a youngster had dropped it. Think I prefer the first idea - although that might be a dipsy thought.
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The great graffiti/street art debate goes on. Cousin Clive sent me a photo of some street art on a wall in Norwich Market Place. It was very impressive. Of course the artist may well have had the permission of the owner to do this. It depicted a black man who looked like a circus performer and who was obviously Pablo Fanque who I have written about on a number of occasions and whom I will no doubt write about again in the future. Fanque came from Norwich and was circus performer and the first black man to be a circus owner. He is famously mentioned in the Beatles song For The Benefit of Mr Kite from the legendary Sergeant Pepper album.
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My final piece today comes from the Golden Book of Stupid Rules and its companion volume You Just Couldn't Make This Up.
According to new Highway Code rules, cyclists are being advised to ride in the middle of the road in some situations. They will be advised to take the new position instead of the left-hand side of the lane when approaching junctions and on quiet roads. This rule remains in place even if there is a cycle lane, which they are not obliged to use.
First obvious question is why spend millions on cycle lanes if cyclists aren't obliged to use them?
Having said that you might be surprised to hear that I believe cyclists have every right to use the road if they don't want to use cycle paths but the finance question is still there. I understand why serious cyclists use the roads but this new Highway Code advice is quite potty and potentially dangerous. The danger is arrogance. Car drivers who believe that cyclists should only use cycle paths and have no right to be on the road and cyclists who believe that they have every right to hold up traffic by riding two or three abreast.
This new rule might work if everyone respected each other. Sadly they don't and sadly some people don't have the intelligence they were born with. In theory it should work. In practice it won't. It will lead to even more aggressive behaviour by both cyclists and drivers and how do you define a quiet road?
I can see it now. A country lane with awkward bloody-minded cyclists riding in the middle of the road so that nothing can pass them and awkward bloody-minded drivers getting angry and aggressive when they can't get past. It's a recipe for disaster.