It's All Boring

I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself today. It’s still all quiet at Le Brin with just Shadow panting and Coco moaning and meanwhile J is having a whale of a time at Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach. I’ve been getting texts from her all day interrupting various activities (mainly lunch) telling me she’s ‘been on the Big One’ (the UK’s highest rollercoaster) and she’s ‘going to die’ (wait till you get home darling!) and ‘it was great’ (yeah). And this from the woman who won’t even go on the back of my scooter!

And then I go and get a puncture on my Alfa and it just happens to be the repair the guy did a few months ago so I’ve got the unenviable job of going back and complaining – in French. Still, once it’s fixed, I’ll stop having to pump up the tyre every time I use the car so I suppose it’s been a long time coming. I should have got it fixed ages ago but sometimes these things just fix themselves – but not this one!

My tedium is only relieved by some cleaners I got in to spruce up the house, preparing it for J’s return. It’s amazing to see some Russian girls wearing French maid outfits and I have to say, they’ve taken my strict instructions not to kneel down but to bend over, to heart. It’s costing me a fortune but I might as well die happy! 

And so that’s it – I couldn’t be bothered writing so last night I just watched the Red-Bull X-Riders championship held in the shadow of the Pyramids and the Sphinx. You can see some of the highlights at the following URL (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do4OjTTBdRA) and whilst I was looking for it I found a guy doing what was described as the world’s scariest bike ride. Now this one’s good because the rider has a camera on his helmet – it’s amazing. It even amazes him that he completes some of the tricks as you can hear when he makes them. Anyway – have a look – that’s it from me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrbSRLiIdOk).

And finally, if Tan (who’s in Cyprus) reads this having managed to get some sort of internet connection – yes, I have cleaned your pool. Boy – you owe me big time!

And no – I haven’t forgotten the picture.

£300 Fine for Two Feet !

Back in 1992 or thereabouts the government of the day (must’ve been Conservative) introduced a means tested fine system. I remember reading about fines of thousands of pounds for relatively simple offences and some poor kid on benefits was fined £1200 for throwing away a crisp packet. There were cases in the papers virtually every day.

A short time after the new system was introduced, I was driving to work and came up to a set of lights which had those cameras which snapped you if you went through them at red. Just as I approached the lights they changed to orange and I knew if I carried on, the inevitable flash would follow so I slammed on my brakes and stopped with my front wheels just over the line by about 2 feet. 

I breathed a sigh of relief at my ability to stop in time, but was then dragged back to reality because about a nano-second later the flash came. I couldn’t believe it and went to work in a right strop but I tried to reassure myself that when whoever checked the photos saw that I was only just over the line, they’d let me off, maybe with a warning.

No such luck! A week later a rather official looking envelope arrived and I read the contents with dread – they had fined me £300 which was the default amount for my TS10 motoring offence and which was a sizeable sum back then in 92. Of course, I could appeal but if I lost the appeal, the fine would be levied in proportion to my salary and that could have been a lot more. I swallowed hard and paid my £300 but unfortunately a few months later my friend decided to appeal her fine (also £300) and when the case was finished, she had to cough up £1,200 for a similar offence!

It was daylight robbery, and from memory, the scheme didn’t last long. There were too many stories of people on wages of £100 a week being fined £500 for stupid, trivial offences.

Fast forward to the present day and some poor Swedish bloke has just been means tested fined the astonishing amount of £650,000 (read that again - £650,000) for a speeding offence in Switzerland. OK – he was doing 300kmh and he earns a lot of cash, but £650,000? Somebody’s having a laugh and they’re probably laughing all the way to the Swiss Police Bank.   

And just a bit of nostalgia here – a picture of my licence with my £300 fine on it. I just couldn’t hand it in!  And sorry it's the wrong way up - good old Google editing again and yes, I did try (for about 30 minutes actually) to 'rotate and flip' it!!!!!

PF6 - Aaaaagh !

I read the other day of a gaffe made by one of the new MP’s elected to Parliament. A constituent wrote to her, and one of her back-room staff handling the complaint sent the MP an e-mail basically saying that the sex education issue the constituent was raising was a joke and included all sorts of sex-related asides, some relating to the constituent. Unfortunately, the aide also copied the e-mail to the constituent!

Been there, done that and it nearly cost me my job.

I hadn’t long been a manager in IBM and of course, any complaints with either the sale or the after-sales service would come to me and this particular customer would call or write weekly to complain about something or the other. And then he managed to get hold of my e-mail address and bombarded me with diatribes about this that and the other. All unjustified in my opinion. He was just a complete moaner.

And then one day he sent me an e-mail complaining bitterly about a female systems engineer who was quite upset by what she’d read because he’d actually been vindictive enough to copy her on the e-mail.

As she worked at one of our other offices and was uncontactable, I sent her the e-mail with some reassuring words about how good her work was and ‘not to let that little ****** get her down, he was a complete ****, a total time waster and if I could get rid of his contract with IBM by snapping my fingers, I’d do it immediately.’

I sat back quietly satisfied that I had supported my staff member and then she came on the phone. ‘Do you know you copied the e-mail you sent me to the customer’, she said.

Aghast, I looked at my ‘sent mail’ and sure enough, his address was on the distribution list. I don’t know what I’d done but it had been copied to him. I called him immediately but he wasn’t at his office. I tried to ‘retrieve’ the e-mail but it was obvious that he’d already received and read it.

I waited for the inevitable and it didn’t take long.

The call came through. It was from the UK CEO’s office they said. I prepared my apologies and resignation speech. I was almost clearing my desk when a familiar voice came on the phone. It was my skiing buddy, a girl called Nadine who had shot to the top in IBM and was now the CEO’s PA.

‘Tom, I’m going to delete this e-mail which is sitting in the CEO’s in-tray.’ I’ll send the client an e-mail saying you’re being ‘dealt with’ but watch your e-mail buttons in future.

Phew! 

PS – what I’d done of course with IBM’s Office E-Mail system was to ‘reply all - PF6’ instead of forwarding to just my staff member!

Extracting The Urine

It was Shadow’s big day at the vet’s yesterday. I think he knew something was afoot when he wasn’t allowed any dinner the night before and was locked in my bedroom all night (despite his snoring) and was then dragged out for a walk at 8am on Monday morning. I don’t suppose the brushing I gave him for thirty minutes reassured him either or the fact that his lead was put on and he was then bundled into the car. Whatever his feelings, we arrived at the vet’s at 9.15 and I allowed him a few sniffs around the grounds before I dragged him, reluctantly, into the surgery.

A quick check of his mouth and the vet (5 foot nothing and size zero) said that his infection was much better but she’d recommend another week of steroids just to make sure. ‘Another 40 euros just to make sure’, was my thought!

I then mentioned Shadow’s panting again (I’d mentioned it last week which made her look in his mouth) and she said she’d recommend a full set of blood tests. ‘How much’, I asked. ‘Oh – only 100 euros’ she said. At that point I made sure she saw his lead which is a well worn, bitten piece of leather held onto his collar by an old climbing carrabina, but it didn’t make any difference, it was still 100 euros.

I held Shadow as she stuck three needles into his legs and extracted syringes full of blood. He struggled a bit, snapped once or twice but eventually gave in as she took enough blood to start a doggy blood bank. ‘What happens now?’ I asked. ‘It’s sent off to Paris’ she replied. ‘You’ll have the results by Friday’.

‘Is there anything else’, I asked. ‘We could do a urine test’, she answered.

At that point I started taking down my trousers but she shouted, ‘No No – the urine test is for Shadow. Let’s take him outside and you get him to sniff around and stimulate him’, she said.

‘Stimulate him?’ ‘The only time Shadow is stimulated is when J comes back from Ed’s with a bag full of dinosaur bones’, I pointed out, but she insisted and so I walked Shadow around the grounds and she followed on her hands and knees with a beaker. Of course Shadow knew something wasn’t quite right and refused to urinate – he’s such a good dog. It was probably something to do with the huge one he’d done when I’d taken him out that morning after being locked in all night!

‘Ok – I’ll have to take it manually’, she said. At this point, I was wondering what a nurse in a hospital would do with a male patient. I was soon to find out.

Back on the table, she said I should hold him firmly and she proceeded to stick a two foot long wire up his ‘willy’. I couldn’t look but obviously Shadow didn’t like it – I mean his ‘willy’ has never been, well, used before. He was ‘done’ before he knew what it was for and so to have this sort of bodily invasion was anathema to him (or do I mean catheter ?)    

Anyway, after several pokes and prods and a few snaps (what if I hadn’t been there holding him in a vice like grip ?) she said it was all done and gave me the bill. €165!

At this point I tried hard not to use a colloquialism (are you taking the p***) so I said, ‘are you extracting the urine’, to which she replied, ‘Oh, I forgot about that, thanks for reminding me – the bill is actually €205’!

Picture is of a traumatised Shadow back at home after his ordeal.

It's All Quiet at Le Brin

Peace, perfect peace. It’s just me and the animals.

Guy is in Ireland with his dad whilst Kitty is also in Ireland (Cork), but with some friends she met when she did an exchange trip earlier this year. J is doing a tour of Manchester and the surrounding areas, doing a final clearing out of her late mother’s house. Tan and Angie (and the kids) are in Cyprus. The whole place is deserted.

And so I’m home alone – and it’s great but the weather’s not been so good. Since J left last Thursday, the weather has been awful, culminating in two days of torrential rain and strong winds on Friday and Saturday, and so all the outside jobs I’d planned to do when the neighbours were away have been put on hold with me only starting them on Sunday afternoon. Still, the ground and the plants needed a thorough soaking and that’s precisely what they got. Being a bit of a dope though, I managed to leave the windows on the jeep down and to surpass that, I even left the sun-roof open. What a wazzock!

And as I write this I’m picking thorns out of my flesh. The first job I tackled when the sun came out was to cut down Tan’s dead Bougainvillea which I planted ten years ago and which, each summer, produced masses of purple flowers as it climbed along their terrace pillars. The frost in February had killed it and as they are very difficult to grow up here in the hills, I was resigned to having bare terrace walls next door but then a few shoots came out of the ground a few weeks ago and now it seems to be making up for lost time and is growing at an astonishing rate. The problem is with the old, dead wood and the multitude of razor sharp thorns the plant produces, presumably as some sort of natural defence mechanism. Well, it was no match for my secateurs although quite a few thorns managed to get me and that’s why I’m scratching like mad. If it’s not the brambles it something else!

A final job was to make sure Shadow had ‘nil by mouth’ on Sunday as he was due at the vets again on Monday and if his mouth infection hadn’t cleared up, he was to go under the knife. Poor soul. I’ll update you all in the next posting.

Well, Tan begged me to keep his pool clean when he was away so I’d better get over there and make sure it is as pristine when he returns as it was when he left. Having now mastered keeping a pool nice and blue, he’s desperate for it to remain that way.

Gardener, pool boy, cleaner, dog carer – what a life!  

The picture was taken four years ago – since then the Bougainvillea had grown quite a bit, but alas, is no longer a semblance of its former glory.