Eye, Eye

I’m off down to Cannes with J today to get her eyes lasered. You’d have thought she could have got it done in a back street in Middleton when she was visiting Manchester last month but nope, I mean she’s only gone and picked a guy who’s ‘surgery’ is nicely located between Bulgari, Hermes and Louis Vuitton on the Cannes promenade.

In Cannes, the traffic is terrible as usual, exacerbated today by dozens of council trucks blocking the roads as they put up Xmas lights. Bah humbug! Parking the car is even worse as I cannot move for Porsches, Ferraris and Jags all vying for space outside their favourite designer shops. It’s strange. Just like Cap 3000 all the shop owners seem to recognise J and are shouting greetings to her!

I dropped J off in the middle of the road hoping she’d be mown down by a large truck so that I’d be spared the humungous bill which I know is coming my way but she managed to dodge them nicely – nothing wrong with her eyes! I went off to find a parking space. After a couple of circuits of the Cannes backstreets, I finally found a place on the seafront not far from the convention centre which is so absolutely lucky I cannot believe it. You could tour the 5 miles of Cannes seafront for a whole year and never see a space and yet, here’s one just outside Monsieur Laserleseyes. 

Before we’d left home this morning, I’d said to J that if she was a brave soldier I’d take her for a nice lunch whilst her eyes stopped smoking and knowing that she’d make a beeline for the Martinez or the Carlton, I put on my faded Levis which did the trick. ‘I’m not going to the Martinez with you dressed like that’, she said. ‘Result’, I thought. I’m sure we’ll find a sandwich bar somewhere. Anyway, she’ll be blind, she wont know where she is. I’ll be able to tell her anything.

After parking the car, I wandered up to Mr Laserleseyes establishment which was one of those large doors you would encounter in Paris. A door with lots of buttons, each one representing a different business. This place would once have been a magnificent Cannes mansion (it’s called Villa Denise), holding fabulous dinner parties with famous people wandering around in smoking jackets and expensive dresses, sipping chilled champagne and looking out from the balconies to the islands just off Cannes. Now it’s a collection of businesses, all charging exorbitant fees to pay for the upkeep of the place and the enormous rates I’m sure they have to pay.

Eventually, after pressing buttons repeatedly until my index finger hurt, I was allowed in. I entered Mr Laserleseyes ‘surgery’ (it looked more like a doctor’s waiting room) and there was the smell of something surgical happening. That unmistakeable smell of anaesthetic or whatever they put on you to stop your eyeballs falling out. I approached the receptionist’s desk and instead of grabbing her by the hair and asking why I was left outside buzzing for 10 minutes, I was niceness itself and said simply that ‘my wife is here’. ‘Which one’, she said. ‘Madame Cupples’, I say. ‘Non’. ‘Ah, Mrs Evans’, I tried. ‘Non’. ‘Mrs Hellon’, I said. ‘Ow many wives do you ave’, she enquired. I gave her the look that only a bigamist could and she relented. ‘Oui. Mrs Hellon is ere’. I waited about 20 minutes whilst J had her eyeballs measured and then we were told to go away for 3 hours whilst they tried to find a laser strong enough. Apparently J has ultra-thick cornea. I could have told them she was ultra-thick and saved myself the €160 for the initial consultation and measuring.

Anyway, we went off down the coast to La Thoule for lunch which was quite delicious and very reasonable until I worked out the likely cost of the whole trip and then I was sick.

Back we went to Dr Laserleseyes or more accurately, I dropped J off and  went plant shopping. I picked her up an hour or so later. Her eyes were watery and red but once she’d put on her new pair of Specsavers sunglasses (ha - Dolce and Gabbana or nothing) she was able to see better and indeed drive me home. We only hit 3 central reservations, 2 old aged pensioners and a white van, so it was a good test of the success of the operation…….none of those count!

More on the eyes in a few days but my big worry is that now she can see she might not like me!         

 

Baby 'P'

I am a troubled person at the moment. I was troubled last week when the Baby P story emerged but after reading the News of the World report on Sunday, which detailed the abuse the little boy got, I think about the poor wee soul constantly. I would not advise ANYONE to read the NotW story as it will haunt you. How any person or group of people could do such a thing is beyond me? Various crimes I can understand and would never condone, but I cannot, for the life of me, understand the utter brutality, and brutality is nowhere near an adequate description, meted out to poor wee Peter.

The names and pictures of the three despicable bastards who carried out this atrocity are now widely available on the net (but to print them or show them would be an offence so they are not included here) but it is hoped that some psychopath in their respective prisons has the decency to make them suffer as wee Peter did, although unfortunately, as they are in prison, a slow torturous death is probably out of the question. I’m sure the wardens will turn a ‘blind eye’ when the time comes, but the thing is, the perpetrators are probably too dumb to understand what is about to happen to them and it’s difficult to think of retribution evil enough to even come close to justice.

A lot of people have been wondering why the conviction was for ‘causing or allowing the death of’ Baby P, instead of for murder. This goes back a few years to a case where some smart-arse defence lawyer spotted that although his three ‘clients’ could be proved to be at the murder scene of an individual, there was no proof which showed that any one of the individuals struck the fatal blow. The ‘scam’ was for each of the three individuals, not to deny being there, but for them to blame each other for the killing. As the charge for each individual was murder and nobody could prove who struck the fatal blow, the jury, on the instructions of the judge had to find each individual ‘not guilty’.  As they were not charged with anything other than murder and had been found not guilty, then they had to be released. And so we have this pathetic cop-out of a charge of ‘causing or allowing the death’ which, no doubt, will have sentencing guidelines and which will result in what the public will think are lenient periods of imprisonment. On this score I urge people not to be worried. Whether these scumbags are in jail for two years or twenty, they will not survive it. Indeed, there are already forums encouraging a fund be set up for the prisoner who metes out some sort of justice to them. Personally, I would pay to be able to participate. I might be squeamish about pain to my own body, but I’d happily do whatever was needed to make these evil bastards suffer, and suffer long and hard.

Similarly, the doctor who saw Baby P two days before he died and did not examine him with his broken back, broken ribs and mutilated fingers because he (Baby 'P') was ‘too cranky’, should immediately be struck off but Dr Sabah Al-Zayat will no doubt be taken on by some other, well-meaning health group and her life will continue.

The care workers who saw Baby P days before his death and who were ‘taken in’ by the chocolate spread over his wounds to disguise them should also be sacked and never employed in any sort of child or healthcare profession again.

The  police person responsible for arresting and holding Baby Peter’s grandmother for kidnapping him and only releasing her on the day of little Peter’s death, when all she was doing was trying to protect him, should be held up to public ridicule.

Baby Peter’s father who occasionally had the child for weekends must have seen the cuts and bruises and yet did not appear to do much about it. Think about it. You get your one and only child for a weekend and he’s got all sorts of injuries and you ‘just report it to the authorities’ and then hand him back.

I’m afraid the list of the culpable goes on and on and we have to hope that Ed Balls, the Government Child’s Minister, will receive a report which allows him to act decisively, although I fear in today’s over-protected society there will be some harsh words, some slaps on wrists, some well-meaning new guidelines, some recommendations for people to resign…..and you know what ? Nothing will happen……and in another 5 or 6 years it’ll happen all over again.

Now I’m not one for encouraging people to sign petitions, but if ever a government (and I don’t blame the current lot for this) needed some public show of outrage and a mandate to allow them to throw the book at Haringey (probably the most useless authority on the face of this earth – they’ve featured in my blog before) and certain individuals, then the Sun petition may just help. The link is below.

Finally, J, can you say a prayer for little Baby Peter at church on Sunday. 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/template/v-1.0/module/petitionsPopUp.jsp?article=1922794

Yes M'Lud

It was Guy’s appearance in court on Monday. The Grasse Magistrate’s Court. Not what they actually call it in French but that’s what it was. He didn’t seem too concerned despite the fact that nether J nor I were accompanying him. I had told him to be respectful and to rise and sit when told to do so. And I had also told him not to mingle with any undesirable characters outside the courtroom. ‘Keep yourself to yourself’, I’d advised. After all, if anyone should know how to deal with ‘the law’ then I should. When Guy got off the bus that evening, he was as cheery as ever. ‘How did it go’, I enquired. ‘OK’ but we had to leave the courtroom when a sensitive case came on’.

You see he had been on an outing to the courts. One of many really good school initiatives they run throughout the year. Guy’s already been on a week’s exchange trip to stay with a ‘typical’ family in Ireland and several times during the school term they’ll take them on visits to let them see what life is like ‘on the other side’. He’s got a week’s placement with an IT firm in January and no doubt there will be many more vocational visits in the pipeline. But he was particularly excited about visiting the courts. I suppose he’s picked it up from having to watch Judge John Deed on TV for the last 5 years. I haven’t the heart to tell him it’s not because his mother is interested in the law but because she lusts after Martin Shaw!

Anyway, my advice to him about the courts reminded me of a particularly amusing episode which happened to me (well I thought so) quite a few years back. I had already been told I’d been successful in my application for a job with IBM in Glasgow and I was working out my notice with the Passenger Transport Executive. I was driving my little green van somewhere to the east of Glasgow when I went through a red light. Now this must have been before cameras were deployed so I must have been spotted by a police patrol car. Eventually I got a letter telling me they would fine me £5 (I told you it was a long time ago) or I could attend court and plead my case.

Because of advice I got and because I’d never been to court before (honest guv) I thought it would be quite interesting to attend in person. Problem was when I got my court date it was on the day I was starting with IBM. Here I was, starting the job of my dreams and the first thing I was doing was going to court, albeit only for a motoring offence. I phoned my manager and said I had some personal business and that I recognised it was my first day and that I’d appreciate the morning off. It wasn’t a problem. He said we’d meet for lunch after I got back to the office.

When the morning arrived, I set off for Partick Marine Court where my case was to be heard. As it was my first day at IBM and I’d been advised on the dress code, I was resplendent in a brand new, navy blue, pin-striped suit, crisp white shirt and subtly striped tie. Shiny shoes and a brand new burgundy briefcase completed the outfit. Not knowing where the court was, I got to Partick quite early. I soon spotted it. It was like the Alamo. It was situated right in the middle of a piece of waste ground, its windows barred and filthy with broken bottles and rubbish of all sorts strewn around it. I stood there thinking that here was a judicial building dealing with Glasgow’s lowlife and the surroundings were completely in sympathy with the reprobates who would climb its worn steps to be sentenced. Then I realised I was one of them! I was laughing at the irony of it all when I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re new here. This your first time?’ I turned to see a guy dressed quite similar to myself, complete with briefcase. ‘Yes’, I said. ‘Don’t worry. Come with me. I’ll show you the ropes’, he replied.

He took me up some stairs , through a small door, up some more stairs and eventually into a dingy little room at the end of a corridor which I’m sure smelled of stale urine.

Once he’d hung his coat up, he introduced himself as Nigel and asked if I’d be going there regularly. I said I hoped not. ‘If  you come here regularly, you’ll have to chip into the tea and coffee fund’, he said. ‘And the magistrates usually finish about 11.30 so we’ll all be able to go off and have a curry up on Dumbarton Road’, he continued.

As I wondered silently what he was talking about, a smart woman appeared. ‘This is Jenny’, he said. ‘Jenny, this is ….sorry what’s your name and what case are you representing’?. ‘I’m representing myself’, I replied. ‘I’m up before the beaks for….’.

I never got to finish my sentence. In an instant, Nigel’s face turned a sort of grey, ashen colour. He grabbed my briefcase, thrust it into my hand and pushed me towards the door.  ‘This is the lawyer’s room’, he said. ‘I’m afraid there’s been a terrible mistake. Don’t ever come up here again’.

Later that morning, after the guy in front of me was given a £5 fine for riding his moped down the crowded pavement in Clydebank High Street and scattering pedestrians everywhere, I felt confident. When my turn came, I explained that I’d been carrying very sensitive equipment in my van (untrue) and although I had slowed down at the lights and, my front tyres had crossed them, I’d actually stopped before my back wheels had crossed the lines (also untrue).

'£20 fine', the magistrate said. 'And make sure you pay before you leave'. I reckon good old Nigel had had a word with m'lud - don't you?

A Good Start To The Day

I got up reluctantly. It was my turn for the school run. It was 6.30am and I was suffering from a bad night’s sleep caused by my mind darting off in all directions and the new duvet cover, which I am still getting used to. Whoever would think of attaching small jewel-like things hanging off of tassels to the sides and the end of a duvet cover? Still, as J is a doing an interior design course, who am I to question her judgement. I just hope I don’t swallow any of these ‘jewels’ during the night! Maybe that’s why they are on tassels so that if I do swallow some J can simply pull them back out again! If she does it properly she might not even wake me up.

Nevertheless, it was my parental duty to drag my excruciatingly painful back out of bed and whilst I moped around waiting for the sprogs to climb the stairs arguing and bickering like two badly behaved terriers, I popped out onto the terrace to see what sort of day it was going to be.  It looked good (see picture). The sun was just lifting off the Med before it climbed into the sky,. There were a few clouds over the sea but over land it was cloudless – my spirits rose. It must’ve been 70 degrees yesterday so hopefully today would be the same.

The sprogs arrived in the kitchen asking the usual questions and making the usual demands. ‘What’s for breakfast’. ‘Make sure my egg is not runny’. ‘Do I have to wear a jacket?’. ‘Are YOU taking us to the bus?’, which was an incredibly stupid question because J never rises before noon and even then, not if the ambient temperature outside is less than 75 degrees. Nevertheless, it was light hearted banter and I was in a good mood.

Breakfast over (lightly fried pitta bread with a fried egg on top – their French friends would be appalled!), we climbed into the car and we set off on the short drive downhill to the bus stop. We passed the horses who have just had the most beautiful foal and then stopped at the road which climbs to the top of the mountain. Reluctantly, we turned downhill instead of taking the high road to Les Courmettes and drove slowly trying to let the rising sun catch us up and beat us to the next corner, but all too soon we were at the main road. I had decided this particular morning to actually cross the road in the car and sit at the bus stop so Guy and Kitty could benefit from the now warmed-up car. I looked both ways (as you do) and saw a car coming out of a branch road to my right. It stopped at the junction which is partly hidden by a house which occupies the apex of the corner so there was nothing I could do to wave them on or signal that I was happy to wait, which I was. There was also no point in me signalling as I was going straight across. So we both sat there.

After a few seconds the small white Citroen dashed into the main road, turned immediately left and came up beside me. Inside was this woman, probably about 30 ish and obviously French cause I could see her nicotine stained teeth and smell the garlic through two sets of windows, and she gave me the most withering look. Now normally I would have made some sort of gesture which would have would her up even more, but today I just looked at her, smiled and I hoped what was going through my mind would be communicated to her…which was. ‘Listen darling. I know my hair’s a mess but I’ll be able to go home and comb it. On the other hand you are soooo ugly and there’s not a lot you can do about it………’. She knew. She knew. She drove off showing more stained teeth and that was that. We waited for the bus which came along at precisely 7.30.

As I drove home, I passed the foal again which was nuzzling into its mother. The sun was now slightly higher and was warming my face through the windscreen. I looked forward to getting back into bed and watching Breakfast TV. The day was indeed going to be good.

As I rounded a particularly bad bend on the single-track road which is not far from the house, I slowed because all sorts of maniacs speed round it, totally blind.  Just as well, because the ugly woman with the white Citroen screamed round it. As she sped passed, I smiled again. She grimaced again.

It was going to be a good day for me. For her on the other hand, I couldn’t have cared less.    

It's Our Two Year Anniversary

Next week we’ll have been in our new house for 2 years. The time has literally flown by. It only seems like yesterday when we were moving in, 1 week before Tan And Angie moved into our old house. Indeed, thanks to Tan and Angie we moved in probably a couple of months before we were due to. The builders had taken their time in making sure everything was perfect before they handed it over but one day we had to tell them, finished or not, we had to move in, so for the first couple of months in the house, we lived upstairs whilst the builders finished downstairs.

Going back a few years, we’d actually started the process in November 2001 by hiring an architect, who on the face of it, would provide everything we wanted which was a Provencal style house on the outside with modern space and facilities inside. We also hired him to build a pool at our existing house which turned into a contractual and financial nightmare. We had no option but to continue with the pool, but when he doubled the price of the new house before a sod was dug, that was it. We fired him which started a 3 year legal dispute but luckily I had taken loads of pictures with all the things which he hadn’t finished and our lawyer reckoned we had a stone wall case against him if he sued us and eventually it all petered out.

Around about the same time, just as I was working out the best way to exterminate this little weasel of a man, we were invited to a ‘housewarming’ by people at the end of our lane who had just built a new house. We were impressed by the house and even more impressed by the fact that we met their builder that night, Antonio, the Italian stallion, who agreed to give us a quote for building our new place. His quote was half the old architect’s (or equivalent to his original quote) and we signed the papers and we were off. The bulldozer arrived towards the end of October 2003 (things don’t move fast in France !) and thereafter there was constant activity on the site for the next 3 years.

As we sit in our house now in front of the roaring log fire with wonderful views down to the sea, we often think about the trials and tribulations of a 3 year build, nothing to do with Antonio, I hasten to add, but with the authorities and the occasional lack of money.

One day in June 2005, just as the roof was about to go on, the local policeman arrived. He told me to get the builders off the site and then proceeded to take pictures of the house in its unfinished state. Just before he left he said J and I had to be in the mayor’s office the next day at 10am. We knew there had been some problems with the foundations and that the levels of the house had had to be altered, making the overall height of the house slightly outside the planning limits but this was ridiculous.

The next day we duly arrived in Mr Bertaina’s office to be read the riot act. It appeared that many of the ex-pats, particularly the English, were building houses which did not conform with the approved plans and we had been caught up in this ‘purge’. Building could not restart until new plans were submitted and approved. Panic stations all round!

I rang a friend of mine who built and restored villas in the area and he put us in touch with a new architect who, quite conveniently was good friends with the people in the planning department in the village. He drew up some new plans, reduced the height of the house and luckily for us, actually extended the internal space, almost doubling it. The new plans were approved and we recalled Antonio to restart work. Six months had passed but fortunately that delay had allowed me to top up my funds which had been dwindling - the Mayor had unknowingly done me a huge  favour by stopping the build. After that, progress was really quick and we moved in, in November 2006.

We are delighted with our home. There have been no major problems, indeed very few problems at all. 2 years on we haven’t had to recall Antonio to fix anything. Any problems have been cosmetic like doors moving on their hinges etc, which I have been able to fix. Now we sit here on chilly Provence evenings, looking at Antonio’s work which everybody comments on as being of the highest quality. We were very lucky indeed to be asked to, and to accept the invitation to our friend’s housewarming. Had we not gone that night who knows what would have happened?

If anybody wishes to see what a house construction looks like from the first trench, the pictures can be viewed at the following web address.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/tom.cupples/NewHouse

Is That You Darling ?

Despite being blissfully retired, I still find myself being drawn to TV or news articles which are technology based. It’s just a fact of life. I did, after all, spend 30+ years in the IT and telecoms business, so I suppose it’s natural. I have bookmarked ‘The Telecoms Register’, which is a website giving all the low down on Telecomms companies and one of the things I miss about BT is the internal news websites which were very informative. I watch the Gadget Show and Click with Guy and we always watch engineering and technology documentaries. Sad, I know but with technology advancing all the time it would be remiss of me not to know the latest gizmos on the market which could change or improve our lives.

Take this morning’s revelation about transmitting holograms – amazing. The possibilities are limitless. Some are wonderfully salacious (and maybe I could be first into the market here – remember you read it here first – see number 5 below) whilst others are merely wonderful. Read on.

I was at a BT Conference (sorry annual jamboree) somewhere in Europe a few years ago. It’s terrible. We all go to these annual events and as soon as they finish we’ve all forgotten where they were for obvious reasons to do with free bars etc. The only thing which helps us remember, are things we brought back with us. So every time I get my crystal glasses out, I remember some of the details of the Prague trip – you don’t want to know! When I look at my wallet (not often these days – it doesn’t have anything in it – aaaah) I think of the trip to Barcelona. Again – you don’t want to know. This morning’s news revelation took me straight back to that fabulous, cultural European city of   ………….good old Birmingham. Yup – it was one of the Sales Conference highlights. I jest. The conference was awful and as I’d already decided to leave BT, I spent most of my time trying to avoid the formal sessions and negotiate my release. I did however attend the opening session which comprised an amazing piece of technology and a senior director who cried on stage. I couldn’t work out why he was crying – maybe he’d heard I was leaving - but it was all very pathetic and probably rehearsed (I’m such a cynic). Anyway, back to the technology. The lights went down, a hush came over the 2000 people in the room and the loud rock music started filling the room with a sound you can only dream of getting on your home hi-fi. Strobe lights filled the room (no doubt to allow the bosses to weed out the epileptics) and the stage curtains pulled back to reveal our Chief Executive. So what ? After he’d finished his short opening the lights went out and he disappeared from view. But almost immediately, they came back on on the other side of the massive stage and he was now over that side. This happened a few times and we were beginning to think he was some sort of magician, appearing and disappearing at will. And then amazingly, the lights came on fully and he was on both sides of the stage at the same time. It was a hologram. The effect was amazing. It was like there were two real people.

So this morning’s news that we may all be able to use holograms in future to allow ourselves to be represented at the place we are making a phone call to, made my mind dive off into all sorts of weird and wonderful areas. So come with me on my hologram trip.

1. You wake up after a troubled night’s sleep and your mother-in-law is standing at the bottom of the bed – aaaaagh!
2. Guy and Kitty don’t need to go to school any more. They can stay at home all day and just send a hologram to their school – aaaaagh!
3. You’ve just woken up, somewhere in Europe, the morning after the last night of a Sales Conference. You’re still in your suit, you’ve been sick and it’s quite obvious a huge party took place in your room. You look up and the wife is staring at you – aaaaaaaagh!
4. You answer the phone at home to kindly refuse a dinner party invite because you are ill (which you are not – you just cant stand them) and your hostess suddenly arrives in your living room.
5. And finally, taking a little joke we used to play on unsuspecting guys in BT to the next stage. We’d leave them a message asking them to phone one of their customers and when they’d got through it was a sex chat line (we’d fixed the number so they didn’t know) – just imagine. We’re all sitting at our desks and suddenly this ‘gorgeous’ naked female appears in the office uttering unspeakables. Great !!!

Go on – think of a few yourself. 

The Con With Cam Belts

Now ladies, this is very technical so if I were you, I’d run off and make a cup of coffee or do your nails.

Guys – what a con. I’ve got an Alfa Romeo Spider (see picture), 1997, only 48,000 miles on the clock and one of the most beautiful cars ever made. Crap to drive on bumpy roads but thankfully, France spends loads more than the UK on their tarmac so it’s not too bad to drive over here. Bought it for about £6k some 7 years ago and apart from two minor faults, one fixed with a hammer, the other with a £15 new part, it’s been flawless. I don’t actually do too many miles, maybe about 3k per year, so now it’s almost fully depreciated and worth about £2k, it’s a real pain to find that it needs a repair which will cost about £800 – 40% of the value of the car and which, as it is inside the engine, may not actually need doing at all but if it suddenly goes – well – crash, bang, wallop – end of Alfa.  

It’s the cam belt. When Alfa started producing the car, they said the cam belt needed changing every 72k miles, which is bad enough, but after numerous failures, they reduced this to 36k miles.

Now just think of this. You’re a rep. You’ve bought yourself a new Spider and do about 25k miles a year running up and down the motorways. After only 18 months, you need to spend £800 on a new bit of rubber…..which might give way at any time. You’re in the lap of the gods. It’s like buying a new telly and being told by the Comet sales guy that you’ll need a new tube in 18 months time! It’s ridiculous. I feel so bad about it I was thinking about getting a petition together but I’m not an activist, so I’ll leave that to someone else, but what a complete rip-off.

If any ladies are still reading this, the cam belt is a rubber belt (on some cars it’s a chain) which makes sure the car’s internals all go round and in and out, at the prescribed timings. If the belt breaks it’s like…..well the nearest comparison is like throwing an aerosol can into a food processor. Initially, there’s some scraping and metallic noises but after a few seconds, there are explosions and the food processor grinds to a very nasty halt. In the case of a car, or more specifically, my Alfa, the valves would slam into the pistons, the pistons would hit the cylinder block and the whole engine would seize up within seconds…..and all this because a piece of rubber, probably not costing more than a few pounds, decided to break. When you think of it, it’s amazing that any piece of rubber lasts more than a week or two in such circumstances.

It’s a real dilemma. As I say, the car’s worth about £2k to anyone else (to me it’s worth more but £2k is all somebody would pay for it) so should I run it and risk it or should I just ‘bite the bullet’, pay my £800 and relax. But relax about what? There’s no guarantee that the new belt will be any better than the old belt. Indeed, the new belt might put a strain on other engine components and the car might grind to a halt within weeks of the ‘repair’.

It’s not just Alfas which have this problem although I think the 36k miles between changes might put the Alfa at the top of the list. Just type ‘cam belts’ into Google and watch the replies stacking up. It’s incredible that with all the high-tech gizmos on a car these days, much of what happens is actually down to a bit of rubber (sorry – that sounds like life itself !!!).

Reluctantly though, methinks I’ll have to get it done cause with my luck, I’ll be bombing down the road one day, the rubber belt will disintegrate and the engine will seize up. Bill = £3k. More than the car is worth. I’ll also have to pay £100 to get towed to the nearest Alfa garage. I’ll have hours of frustration at the side of the road and will have to get a taxi home.

Maybe the £800 is not so bad after all.

Letter To My Bank

Dear Sir or Madam (it was a Madam who replied the last time), 

This is a rather detailed and therefore lengthy letter so I would suggest a comfy chair and a cup of coffee. This is what I did yesterday morning when I sat down at 9am to apply for a limited offer fixed-rate deposit with my other bank. It was exciting. Just like Xmas had come early. Here they were, offering me 6% gross for 1 year when you only pay 3.8% gross.  For a person who relies on his savings to pay his pension, it was almost too good to be true. How prophetic! 

I started their on-line application process and was at the bit where I had to fill in my debit card details when I realized it would be prudent to move the amount of money I required from my e-saver to my current account. I signed onto the Abbey internet site and did a ‘move money’ transaction. At the last minute, after accepting everything I keyed in, I got an error message saying the ‘service was temporarily unavailable’. Now call me paranoid or what (paranoid isn’t really my name) but in these days of banks failing, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Abbey didn’t actually want people moving money around, even if it was cleared funds and all they were doing was moving it between accounts in the same bank! 

What fuelled my fears was that I’d had the same problem a few weeks previously when, before setting off to enjoy myself in Glasgow (I now live in France as you may have noticed from the letter headings) I’d tried to move the princely sum of £604.99 to my current account so that I could withdraw the money once I had hit the bright lights. After returning from a wet and wild weekend in my beloved home city, I had noticed that the ‘move money’ transaction had not happened and that my current account had gone ‘all red’.  I called good old Bangalore but got no joy so I called the Technical Help Desk and after a 20 minute call which cost me 20p a minute (0845 numbers are charged at a premium in France – how bizarre – eh ?) the girl kindly moved the money manually, said ‘there was a problem with the system’, it would be fixed and she agreed that I would not be charged interest for the inconvenience caused. 

Now I have to say that although I was only trying to move just over £600, this was at the time when major banks were failing faster than you could say ‘Fannie Mae’ and so my suspicions were aroused then. So how do you think I felt yesterday when, having been bombarded with messages for the last 6 weeks about the ‘financial strength’ of the Santander Group, who, having said their Tier 1 Capital Ratio (look it up) was quite robust thank you, they dived off into the market to raise the not inconsiderable sum of €7.2 billion! But hey, anyone who understands Tier 1 Capital Ratios doesn’t panic easily and so I got another cup of coffee and picked up the phone. 

Yup – you’ve got it. I got Bangalore again. I now feel that I know the city, I’ve spoken to them so many times recently. When people ask me where I’m going to travel to in my retirement, India doesn’t come into it. Been there, done that…albeit only on the phone. I ask them about the weather. Their families. What they’re having for lunch. I ask about that call centre agent who, when upset with the language of his customer, decided to get his own back by changing all the details on his accounts. Read on – is this what happened? Was this a case of Ranjiv’s revenge? 

Anyway, I digress. After only a 15 minute call this time (again at 20p a minute – I’m totting it up), Sanjiv decided to put me on hold. Nope. Line went dead! After calling poor old Sanjiv some names he wouldn’t recognize, I decided that I’d call the techies, the Sheffield accents are nice and I usually get through. After another 20 minutes, the girl agreed to move my money manually. There was still “a problem with the ‘move money’ system”! Great, all fixed – try to make a debit card payment to my new, super-duper high-interest account – transaction failed because of some problem. I call the techies again (10 minutes this time). This guy (I don’t take names – you never ever get back to that person anyway), said the problem was that I was trying to move too much money at once. There was a ‘floor limit’.  He couldn’t tell me what the limit was, but to try decreasing amounts until it worked. ‘Couldn’t he give me a clue’, I begged. ‘Couldn’t we play a little game until I guessed the number’. ‘Nope – not company policy’. 

I tried several transactions of decreasing values which all failed. I tried to pay a debit card transaction of 99p. Failed! This time, my new bank (very helpful by the way) gave me a message which said that the details on my card did not match the details I was giving them on the application form !!!!!! 

Called the techies again. Another guy, who seemed to know what he was doing, spent about 20 minutes looking at various things and decided that my name was Timothy, not Thomas. This was the problem. This is where déjà vu took over as I’d had the same problem last year when all my addresses and the names on my accounts changed, inexplicably, from Thomas to Timothy. Several dozen calls and a long letter later and you’d changed them back and kindly credited my account with £50. The guy said he’d change them all back again and that it would be sorted within minutes. I could finally get to open my super-duper, wizzo new account. Nope! After several attempts to make a direct debit payment the system still wasn’t working. It was now getting dark, I’d missed lunch and was feeling faint. That’s not all I was feeling. I imagined what hands round a neck feels like as you slowly strangle the life out of somebody – anybody! 

I call my new bank. It’s now too late to open my new super-duper pay-loads-of-dosh account so I collapse in tears. This is all too much for a pensioner who is known to be rather keen on controlling his finances to the nearest penny. I compose myself. Better get my money moved back into my 3.8% interest e-saver account. I sign on again. Go to ‘move money’ and do the transaction. Aaaaagh – ‘transaction failed – service temporarily unavailable’. I beat up the cat, kick the computer printer (it’s at my feet) and tell the kids on the phone they can walk the 5 miles home from school. To say I’m pissed off is a huge understatement. 

Another call to the techies (20 minutes). By now I’m crying. The girl is very sympathetic. Asks me to sit down and take some Valium and says I have been busy! She can see all the failed transactions. I plead with her just to return my money to my e-saver and I’ll go away. ‘Just some security questions’ she says very slowly. 

The final outcome is that she managed to move my money back to my e-saver. She even asked me to verify that it had happened by looking at my PC but it was sadly lying in bits on the floor by now. 

In summary, I spent approximately £20 on calls yesterday. Lost approximately £550 in interest by not being able to switch my money and probably lost several years off of my life expectancy. I will have a large vet’s bill for fixing the injuries to the cat and my PC will need repairing. My wife of only 6 months, is divorcing me and the kids have still not returned from school. Life is a bitch then you have to deal with The Abbey! 

Finally, I apologise for not having gone to the effort of getting the name of an actual Abbey person to write to, but having tried in the past, it would be quicker for me to research my family tree back to the 15^th century. 

Yours sincerely,

 

No Wonder Pensioners Panic

I got an e-mail this morning from a bank I use, offering an interest rate of 6% gross. Now as I only get 3.8% gross from my existing bank (The Abbey) this extra 2.2% is not to be sneezed at, especially as I rely on savings interest rates for my pension.

I started about 9am, after I’d completed all the housework J had asked me (told me ?) to do. I started filling in the forms online and half-way through realised I’d have to transfer some funds into my current account from my savings account in order to start up the new account with the other bank.

Easy-peasy. Just go online and use the ‘move money’ tab on the internet, which worryingly did not work a few weeks ago, but I’d received reassurance since then that it had been fixed. Nope! Not fixed. An error message saying the service was unavailable. The previous time, I’d been told it was a ‘technical problem’ and was easily fixed and as I was only transferring a small amount then it was not a problem – they did it manually.

This morning, because it was a larger amount, I immediately came to the conclusion when it did not work, that the Abbey did not want people moving money around, even between their own accounts. I called the Abbey hoping against hope that I would not get their Bangalore ‘Help Desk’ but I did. As usual, we went through all the problems I’d had and after about 10 minutes the guy said to hold on, he’d be back. Nope! Line dead. I was furious. The Abbey don’t have ‘normal’ numbers for people to call them, they only have 0845 numbers which cost about 20p per minute from France so I’d wasted about £2 already and I’d have to call back. This time I called the ‘technical help desk’ which has its own 0845 number and although still costing 20p per minute, at least you get somebody who doesn’t have to stick to a script like they religiously do in Bangalore.  

The girl was helpful but could not see a reason why my ‘move money’ request did not work. This is where I started to get a bit stroppy and it was also the point where if I’d been an 85 year old person whose life savings were with the Abbey that I would have started to panic. I’d read during the week, that despite all the positive press recently about the fact that the Abbey is one of the world’s best capitalised banks, it was still raising more money to protect itself from ‘any downturn in Latin America’. Add this slightly more pessimistic news to the fact that I couldn’t do anything with my money and you have CONCERN. Not PANIC, just CONCERN.

Eventually the girl transferred my money manually but only after another £4 telephone call.  Great – now to get on with transferring it to the new bank.

Back online. Filled out a few forms and pressed the button. ‘Sorry – we cannot complete the transaction……….your details do not pass the security tests’.

Back to the Abbey where another technical guy took my call and eventually found out (after another £6 on call charges) that my accounts were not in my name and that’s why the transaction failed. Now this is a bit of déjà vu – last year my accounts changed to my son Timothy’s name ( so using ‘T’ worked but using Thomas did not) and after several calls and a stroppy but humorous letter (both probably costing about £20) I got an apology, £50 and an assurance that it would be fixed. 

It was, for all of about 6 months. The guy apologised, changed all the details on the system and said my transaction to the other bank should now work. 

It did not! Cue glass of wine and a long long scream. Hence the picture.

The Institution

Tears of frustration welled up in Guy’s eyes. He’d been due to be released 10 minutes earlier but the huge black warder, a mountain of a man, was determined to prolong his agony for as long as possible. Guy would not be allowed out of the institution until his parent had signed his release form and furthermore, understood the terms of his release. Admin completed, the large green gates, which the warder guarded with a zeal bordering on sadism, slid apart on their well greased runners. They did not make a sound. The only sound was me muttering under my breath. Guy wasn’t in any sort of trouble. This was just me trying to get him out of school early!

My kids will go pale when they see the title of this blog posting. It’s about their school and the one thing they hate, is to be exposed to school outside of school hours. They don’t dislike school amazingly enough, it’s just that the several hours a day they spend there, having their brains exercised, is quite enough thank you.

College La Sine is about 10 minutes away from our house and generally Guy and Kitty will catch either the 7.30am or 8.30am bus. Apart from Wednesdays when they finish at lunchtime, they will be ‘released’ at either 4pm or 5pm, so it can be quite a long day.

I used the word ‘released’ in the last paragraph deliberately as kids are not allowed out of school unless they can prove that they have finished for the day. A rather large black bouncer guards the gates and this is not to stop trouble (nobody would dare) but to check the kids’ school agenda (or diary) to establish if they can be allowed out. To be released early they must have either a teacher’s or a parent’s signature.

The school have also recently introduced the  ‘system from hell’ as far as the kids are concerned. It’s an IT system, accessed via the internet which provides a daily, let me repeat, daily, performance view of the child’s progress. It lists all their tests and their marks, the work they do in particular lessons and also their homework for the current evening. No more little fibs about ‘having no homework’. It’s all there in the ether.

I first saw the systems the school employs when we took Guy there for his first day. Each child registered their palm print on a biometrics system and thereafter, each lunchtime they have to place their palm on a reader which detects if the child is due a school meal – i.e. they’ve paid. It also alerts the school if they have paid for a meal but have not entered the dining room. A letter is then sent to the parents the following day. Strangely, the children are not allowed to take lunchboxes to school. They either go home (or at least leave the school premises if their agenda says they can) or stay and have the school 3 course menu.

In some respects it must be like a prison for the kids but they get used to it and as far as the parents are concerned, if a child is due to be at school, they will be at school. No chance of them sneaking off to Vence about 10 minutes walk away with their mates for a coke and a sandwich at lunchtimes, never to return to their lessons.

The only way to ‘escape’ the system, is not to go to school in the first place but again, as soon as the register is taken, and it is taken three times a day, if a child is detected as ‘missing’ the old letter writing system bursts into action and the parents will know the following day and a response is required. It is virtually foolproof. I have however, worked out a few wrinkles in the system but, of course, Guy and Kitty read this and it would be remiss of me to give them ideas but it wouldn’t surprise me if Guy hadn’t already hacked into the school systems (he is after all on the techie committee) and sorted a few things.

Fast Food - Slow Building

Yup – we’ve got McDonalds here. I think I’ve even seen a few Subways. Don’t think we’ve got any Prèt a Manger though – something with an obviously false French name would never make it. McDonalds even serves beer and so becomes a bit more adult friendly. It’s main attraction though is as a place where kids are handed over from one parent to another after divorce. Quite sad really that probably more than  half the kids there on Friday nights and Sunday evenings are from ‘broken’ homes but hey, they’ve got to meet somewhere neutral.

But back to the point. Wander through the streets of Nice and it is quite different to say London where in one street you’ll have several sandwich shops and a few fast-food chains. The French, you see, don’t really like sandwiches for lunch. Despite the almost religious zeal with which the French buy their baguettes, sometimes visiting the boulangerie three times a day, they much prefer a sit down lunch. That’s why a 2 hour lunch break is still quite common over here. At lunch time in the Midi and the Sport (local bars/restaurants) you’ll see many working men, some in overalls and others in suits, just sitting on their own having lunch. It’s a national way of life. The two hour thing even in southern France isn’t to have a siesta and get away from the midday heat. Oh no – it’s so they can stuff themselves in the middle of the day.  

When our builders started constructing our new house, the first thing they did was to make a shelter. Quite a substantial place it was too, to the point where J actually thought it was the start of our new abode! A corrugated tiled roof, room enough for the three or four guys who were doing the building, a few benches and electricity cables run in so they could listen to their radio………over their two hour lunches. Antonio, the main man would go home every day for lunch. A drive of some 20 minutes each way. Not a long drive in UK terms but it would be maybe 10 miles. It would have been much more efficient in every way you could think for Antonio to stay around the place and have a sandwich but off he went every single day, back home to his missus where, no doubt a three-course lunch awaited him.

The other thing the builders did was to make a ring of large stones which I thought was some sort of religious ceremony until I saw the grill being placed on top. This was to be their barbeque. And then, on the first day on site, Phillipe, the youngest of the three guys was spotted up in the terraces, rummaging around the undergrowth. He came back down with a handful of green stuff and then started cutting branches off one of our hedges. It turned out that he was up in the terraces looking for wild thyme and wanted the branches off our hedge because it was rosemary. Further inspection a few minutes later, after the bbq had been fired up, literally, saw some prime cut lamb chops being carefully tended and smothered in herbs. The smell was delicious, particularly as J served me up a cheese sandwich that day – I remember it well!

And so for the next four years, the bbq would be lit, the meat would be brought out and carefully cooked and the salad would be prepared with oils and a variety of nuts and other accompaniments and they’d sit down and just eat their lunch. Never talking, just eating and listening to the radio. Occasionally I would take them over a beer or a bottle of wine and salivate at what was cooking. Shadow also made a bee-line for the builder’s hut on a daily basis, just about 11.56 as he knew that in about 30 minutes time there would be some tasty tit-bits from his friends, the builders.

My abiding thought though, and one which shows my complete disregard for French culture, was that if these guys had had a Subway or a McDonalds close by, then my house would have been finished about 9 months quicker. C’est la vie….as I keep saying.

Not ‘Centre Forward Shoot’ but ‘Shoot the Centre Forward’

When I was up in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago one of the people I was keen to see was my cousin Gordon and his mother, my aunt Helen. Gordon and I used to be like brothers, going fishing every weekend, playing football, doing the milk rounds and just hanging out with mates. At one stage, I lived with the Geddes family and I will not castigate my aunt in this blog for making me sleep in the hall cupboard – after all it was a large cupboard and the alternative was much less pleasant. Anyway, Gordon and I used to play football as often as we could and luckily there was a pitch right outside his front door in Thornwood Avenue, Partick. Every Saturday and Sunday we’d be down there, me with my silky midfield skills and Gordon banging in goals from all directions. If we managed to get into the same team, we were unbeatable. Although a brilliant attacking midfield player (if I say so myself), my asthma had left me short of breath on occasions and getting into a ‘proper’ team was not an option but Gordon was besieged with requests to play for teams, and he obliged, even to the extent that he played for the Catholic Churches League despite being a Proddie!

And so the other night when I was reading a paper which stated that in London, school or district football teams now have to have police and security people guarding them whilst they play because of the likelihood of violence, it reminded me of an incident when I was watching Gordon play, one cold, wet Saturday morning in a Catholic Churches League game.

I had arrived a few minutes after the game had started and as usual, Gordon was quite clearly the outstanding player on the field. His ability to pass players whilst running at speed was causing havoc with the opposing defenders and soon he’d scored a goal and set up another one. Not long after the restart when Gordon was running with the ball, he suddenly let out a yelp and stopped, losing the ball to an opposing player in the process. A few minutes later the same thing happened. When he had an opportunity to do so, Gordon wandered over to the touchline where I was standing and said, ‘some bugger is shooting me’.  I thought he was imagining things but decided to have a look at the crowd watching the game, mainly Catholic priests and other kids of about the same age as Gordon and myself.

Sure enough, the next time Gordon was on a mazy run, one of the crowd took out an air pistol, aimed at Gordon and fired. This time it missed but I moved in closer and the next time he levelled the pistol ready to fire I jumped on him. Well, all hell broke loose as about 6 of his mates jumped on me. I was trying to wrestle the air pistol from the guy whilst his mates were trying to drag me off him and beat me up. After what seemed like an eternity, I surfaced to find about 4 priests breaking up the fight. When they’d separated everybody into little snarling groups, one of the priests asked me why I’d started the fight. ‘Because that little !*%$£ has a gun and he’s shooting my cousin’. ‘Don’t swear at me young man’, said the priest.’ And you’re talking nonsense – none of my boys would do such a thing’. ‘Begorrah Begorrah’.

There was no reasoning with the priests so the only way I thought of resolving the issue was to try and get the gun so I could show them so I lunged at the offender one more time and all hell broke loose again. By this time, the game had stopped and the two teams had become involved with Gordon’s lot trying to get me out of the clutches of several guys intent on beating me to a pulp and the opposing team trying to beat up Gordon’s team. The priests were right in the middle of all this, screaming in Irish.

The game was abandoned. I waited for Gordon’s team so I had some protection and eventually they emerged from the hut which was the dressing room. As they wandered over, I waited for the plaudits to follow. What a hero. What a great guy.

And then Gordon said, ‘What did you go and do that for? We were winning two-nil. Now we’ll have to replay the game.’   

One cannot win – even in battle.

Remember, Remember, The 5th of November

It was Guy’s birthday on Wednesday. Guess who he was called after? Yup – you got it – Guy de Maupassant. Nah – it was that bearded fellow in 1605 who tried to roast a few parliamentarians.

We had a bit of a party for him but as it was the end of school half-term and most of his mates live miles away and it was absolutely pouring with rain, he only had one pal, Drew, over to help him celebrate. But that didn’t stop us adults having a ball. Any old excuse.

Nibbles and wine to start with followed by pizza and more wine. Some champagne and then fireworks and birthday cake, and then some more wine to end the evening. The fireworks were a scream. We’d bought them in summer but because there were no wet days we couldn’t use them so last night I dug them out and set them off on the terrace firing them at the French houses. You don’t really get good (I mean big) fireworks out here so the pack we had consisted of extra-small rockets, firecrackers and some Catherine wheel things and 2 roman candles. Strangely enough there were about 20 of the small rockets and in an effort to try and create a bigger bang, we taped several of them together. Big mistake. They simply caught fire and whooshed around making everybody run into the safety of the pool house. Ever seen 6 guys trying to get through a door made for one?

After that little escapade we retired to the kitchen where it was much dryer and a bit warmer and then we set J up big time.

A few years ago we built an enormous bonfire, complete with a Guy. As it was a bit damp in the days leading up to the 5^th I soaked it in a couple of gallons of petrol. The highlight of the evening, dare I say it myself, was when I would fire a flaming arrow into the bonfire from a safe distance. I visualised the arrow making a long flaming arc before hitting the bonfire at the base which would set it alight. Well, I completely forgot about the weight of the paraffin soaked rag tied round the end of the arrow and when I fired it, it simply flew a few yards and landed with a dull thud, well short of the bonfire. There was nothing for it but to retrieve the arrow which I did and hoping I was far enough away from the bonfire, I threw it in. Not quite as spectacular, but it had the same effect. There was an almighty explosion and flames must have flown 30 feet into the air. Anyway, the rest of the evening went off ok but several of our guests were taking bets as to when the Pompier (French Fire Brigade) would arrive. Luckily they never did, but it was that fear of the Pompier arriving in droves to put out the fire (they don’t have bonfires here) and giving me a big fine which started the little joke on J.

So we’re in the kitchen and I get Guy to call the home phone on his mobile from the lounge. The phone rings in the kitchen, I pick it up and say, ‘aah oui, oui, oui c’est moi, oui, oui’. By this time J is getting impatient as you do when you’re trying to work out what the person on the other end of the line is saying and she offers to take the call as it’s obvious I’m struggling with my French. She takes the handset and as she does, she says, ‘who is it’?. ‘The Pompier’, I reply and she goes pale. She takes the call in the lounge where Guy is sitting on the sofa talking into his mobile….but it doesn’t click. Her own son is berating her for firing off fireworks without a licence, kidding on he is the Pompier and J is all apologetic.

It was only the hysterical laughter from all the adults in the kitchen who were in on the dastardly deed, who made her think something was not quite right. Poor girl! 

PS - was it only me, who for years and years, thought the burning of a Guy on top of the bonfire was a celebration of his act of trying to blow up parliament as opposed to a celebration of him being hung, drawn and quartered? 

Go and Get a Bucket of Steam

Following on from yesterday’s blog where I explained how a stuck yoga position managed to help get me a job at Rootes/Chrysler, it was a strange feeling a couple of years later when I was one of the more experienced trainees watching the new recruits being put through their paces. Once they’d been hired, they immediately spent the first two weeks in the mechanical workshop under the tutelage of the more experienced guys – like me! Thereafter it was a complete culture shock for them – probably like going to boarding school and being a fag - without the ‘bending over bit’ I hasten to add.

Anyway, we made their lives hell. A typical trick was to send them off (to a known and pre-warned associate at the other end of the factory which was over a mile long) to get a bucket of steam and after an hour they’d come back, completely apologetic that they had failed in the task. ‘Ok then – go back to the tool store (same place) and get me a left handed screwdriver then’, was the next task issued. Again, they would return, all apologetic saying the tool store didn’t have any in but they would get some next week! Hilarious!

Now remember the saying, ‘what goes around, comes around’? Well, when I got to the Glasgow Transport Executive, I was totally stitched up……like a kipper in fact. I’d arrived there as some sort of hot-shot. A work study guy who had implemented all the newest production facilities in one of the most modern factories in Europe. Somebody who would introduce these 20^th century techniques to the dark, Victorian, 19^th century depots from which hundreds of Glasgow’s green and yellow buses exited every morning. I arrived on the Monday morning, suited and booted and was introduced to everybody in the department. I was given my free bus pass (I’m just waiting for my 2^nd one !) and my white coat and was advised that, although unusual, I was to go off to Anniesland Bus Depot where there was an urgent job waiting for me. They explained that although I had been brought in to update the methods and production techniques they used, I needed to see the old systems for myself.

When I got there, the depot manager explained the task - I needed to establish the time it took ‘old Jimmy’ to sweep the yard. No problem I thought……. until I saw the yard. It was about 2 acres in size. It was humungous! I was then introduced to ‘old Jimmy’ who was not too keen to have a white-coated, management, ponce (as he called me) following him about but I explained the principle of work study and we agreed to disagree.

We started. Old Jimmy sweeping away and going off to get his shovel every now and again which he propped up against the furthest away wall. When his shovel was full, he’d carry it off to the wheelbarrow which, strangely enough was parked against another wall. After transferring the dirt to the barrow, he’d then go and put his shovel back against the wall. After about 10 minutes of this I stopped him and asked why he had to prop his shovel up against one wall and his barrow against another wall. ‘To stop the buses running over them son’, he said. Diplomatically as I could, I said from now on he’d keep his shovel in the barrow and his barrow beside him. Once the barrow was full he could empty it. He growled something nasty, realised the game was up and then carried on in the prescribed manner. I was triumphant.

We carried on for the rest of the day, and the next and the next. I called the office to clarify how long they wanted me to stay there but my manager merely referred me to the depot manager who said I needed to work out a time for the whole yard. And so I carried on watching poor old Jimmy sweeping the yard, hour after hour, day after day….for two whole weeks. In rain and shine he swept. When it rained I watched from one of the parked buses, stopwatch going round and round the clock face in that monotonous way it did.

I returned to the office at the end of those two weeks to see everybody smirking. Laughing behind papers. Guffawing in little groups in the corners of the large, open plan office. I was called into the manager’s office and asked to show him my reams and reams of paperwork. ‘I don’t know where you’ve been’, he said. ‘We normally measure old Jimmy sweeping 20 square feet of yard and then multiply it up’, he said. ‘You should have been back here two weeks ago. Not a good start for a hot-shot would you say, Thomas’.  As I left and closed the door I could hear him in hysterics.

The picture is of ……..a left handed screwdriver !!!! No – it’s not a joke. Apparently they do exist now.

Interviews

Guy went off for his first ever interview this afternoon. I don’t know the result but I’m pretty sure he’ll do ok. I wanted to fix his hair before he went. I wanted him to wear shiny shoes and tuck his shirt in but all he said with an air of frustration was, ‘it’s a school placement Thomas not a real job’. Indeed it is. This year at secondary school all the pupils have to spend a week at a company or organisation getting exposure to a workplace. It’s obviously to prepare them for life outside school but we’re hoping that because he’s passionate about IT, he might actually be put on a register they (Unisys) keep of potential employees which would be great.

All week I’ve been firing questions at him, reminding him that in interviews first impressions are key. I’ve been encouraging him to do some research on Unisys on the web but whether he has or not is a secret he’s keeping. We’ll see how it goes.

It reminded me of my first job interview at Rootes. There were about a hundred 17 and 18 year old boys wandering around all waiting for instructions. Some were eventually herded into a workshop whilst others including myself were asked to wait in a large room and advised that it could take up to an hour before we might be called.  

One of the guys in the room said he’d heard about the Rootes interviewing technique and that they’d probably ask  if we could do, or had done anything unusual. We went round the room and all the guys said what they’d done and when it came to my turn I said I could do the Lotus position. Somebody asked me to show them and I got down on the floor,  folded my legs across one another and started to swing on my arms in a perfect Lotus position. The door opened and the Personnel Officer came in and before he’d even seen me, he called my name. I tried as best I could to unfold my legs but they were stuck. I couldn’t extricate myself from this damned Lotus position. Eventually, after getting no response from the others in the room, he came round to my side of the table, looked down at me swinging on my arms and just said, ‘I take it you’re Thomas Cupples‘? That was just the start of the process but after a few more rounds I got the job so it obviously didn’t count against me.

A few years later, after Chrysler had bought Rootes and had decided to downsize and get rid of me and all my mates, I ended up at another interviewing session for the then Glasgow Transport Executive (the crowd that ran the buses and tubes). The salary was good and I had formed a good relationship at night school with a guy who worked there. He informed me that the test and interview was a ‘doddle’ and that I should consider my chances of getting the job 50/50 as another night school person, a guy who also worked at Rootes was being interviewed as well. That morning I left Chrysler for my interview and my ‘colleague’ and adversary wished me well – his interview was in the afternoon. I arrived to be shown into this pokey little office where I was given a set of questions on Work Study Methodology (which was my job at Chrysler) and left on my own. I looked at the questions and frantically scoured the paper only to establish that I could not answer a single one of them. It was a different discipline of Work Study and I didn’t have a clue. I was aghast. What should I do ? Try and sneak out without them noticing ? I was desperately working out what my strategy should be when my mate from college came in and asked how I was getting on. When I confided to him that there wasn’t a single question I could answer, he laughed, pulled a sheet of paper out of his inside pocket, put it on the desk I was at and left. It was a complete set of answers.

A few minutes later, the two departmental bosses came in, picked up ‘my’ paper (I’d put the original one in my briefcase), looked through it and nodded to each other. They said all my answers were correct, there was no need for an interview and that they’d only one other candidate to see that afternoon. They’d let me know.

I hot-footed it back to Chrysler where my ‘colleague’ was waiting for me. ‘What was it like’. Was it difficult? Was the interview tough? I simply took out the unanswered test paper, slid it across the table to him and watched him go pale. He went off only to come back a few minutes later. ‘Where did you go to’, I asked’ ‘I’ve just phoned them and told them I wouldn’t be coming for the interview this afternoon’. ‘What did they say’, I enquired. ‘Only that it was good of me to call and they wished me well’. ‘Whoever gets that job bloody deserves it if they can answer all those questions’, he said. 

I left two weeks later. He didn’t come to my leaving do! 

PS - that's not me in the picture.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

I’ve been waiting for this moment all year. The final race of the Grand Prix season. I reckoned right the way back in March that the championship would go down to the wire and so it proved although it took some pretty dodgy steward’s decisions and some unfairly harsh penalties throughout the season (on Lewis Hamilton) to make sure the last race in Brazil would decide the world crown.

By a cruel twist of timings I had a birthday bash to go to this afternoon but luckily I had developed a cold overnight so could not go. Really I did. A real sniffler it is too, so I just loaded the fire up with logs and sat down to watch the race on the telly. I’d actually set up a TV in the bathroom so I could sit in the warmth of a really hot bath, soak my bones, sweat my cold away and luxuriate in J’s most expensive bubble bath and watch the newest of Britain’s world champions but the kids and J had used all the hot water up so that was a great plan screwed. Was this an omen?

J and the kids went off to the birthday party, I sat down in perfect peace and quiet with Shadow at my feet and the race started. It was all pretty mundane for the first few laps with the leaders all getting away without mishap except for poor David Coulthard whose last race this was before retirement. Some pratt took him out on the first lap, the first corner actually and the suspicion was that it was Nico Rosberg whose aunt is a friend of ours. Wait till I see her. What a way for a distinguished career to end. Taken out by a fair-haired, pimply Finnish youth who can’t drive yet.

Coulthard has always had a special place in my affections, not only because he is a fellow Scot but because when I visited the Monaco Grand Prix qualifying a few years ago with my sons, we ‘bumped’ into him just outside the motor homes. When he heard the Scottish voices wishing him well for the race he came over and spoke to my boys for a few seconds. My boys were delighted and more so when he actually went on to win the race the following day.  So David, have a happy retirement. You’ve been a credit to your sport.

But back to today’s race. Hamilton needed only to finish 5^th if Massa won to win the world championship. Massa streaked away in the lead with Hamilton 5^th – the perfect script. Then there were some pit stops which tend to mess things up a bit. Hamilton came out of his in 7^th place but rose to 5^th after some typically aggressive driving. Massa meanwhile sailed off serenely into the distance. Nothing but some heavy rain, which he hates, or a mechanical catastrophe would stop him. Rain however, was forecast 7 laps from the end of the race and sure enough it came down right on cue. The leaders all dived into the pits to change their tyres but some of the slower drivers thought they could get to the end without putting on wet-weather ones and stayed out. Hamilton was now 4^th and seemingly safe but just as another driver closed in to take his place….. incredible, incredible...... my satellite signal disappeared. It was raining here also and in a heavy downpour the picture breaks up and eventually disappears. Well, I tried everything. I looked for another ITV station and found one way back in the listings – Hamilton was now 5^th and still in it. Then this channel disappeared as well. As a last desperate measure I moved onto Radio 5 Live hoping they’d be broadcasting the race – they were, but as I  picked up the commentary I was aghast to learn that Hamilton was now 6^th. Something had happened in the seconds during which I searched the airwaves and he was now out of contention. The last thing I heard on the radio before I switched off in disgust was, ‘and Hamilton is now in an impossible position. There’s only two corners left….it’s all over. Massa’s won it’. I cursed and sat down on the sofa. I’m a very bad loser. A few minutes later I switched the telly back on mainly to see if the signal had returned and heard the commentators going mad – one of the drivers who had stayed out on dry-weather tyres just couldn’t get any speed and Hamilton passed him to take the coveted 5^th place. I was speechless but elated. Hamilton was world champion and rightfully so as far as I was concerned. The authorities had tried to screw him all year but he’d beaten them – nil carborundum illigitimi and all that! Pathetic, amateur stewards from countries who don’t even have cars had tried to screw him but he’d triumphed. Brilliant!

Finally, I have to say that Massa was very dignified in defeat. He’d worked incredibly hard all year but had just been pipped at the post and whilst he cried and cried he still managed to compose himself and pour praise on Hamilton’s triumph.