Tag: Cancelled

Has Something Happened?

So, after surviving ninety-six years, and lasting through having Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister, it says a lot that after one day of having Liz Truss as prime minister, the Queen decides, enough of this shit I’m off.

And why is it that no one ever pays attention to Public Enemy. They were telling us over thirty years ago – “Can’t Truss It.”

I’m sure that the Irish are looking forward to calling Charlie boy king. There’s no way they are going to miss out on calling him Charles the turd (their usual pronunciation of third).

Anyone suggesting Elton John does another version of ‘Candle In The Wind’ deserves to be shot. A Kunt And The Gang version on the other hand…..

The only thing I can think of is new post boxes. They have the initials of the monarch and post office on them. Which means they will be C 3 P O going forward.

Meanwhile, after yet more sporting postponements on Friday, it was back to the studio for a couple of hours of desperate filler. Here on Sky No-Sports News.

Most shops were still open on Friday. There were only really the British Heart Foundation charity shops that weren’t. Although someone had been working late into the night on Thursday to remerchandise the window display so that all the items on display were black. Shoes, bags, coats, dresses, shirts, trousers, hats, scarves, jewellery. Almost as if the window were dressing to go to a funeral.

Nathan got himself a Subaru Impreza on Friday. I could hear it growling from the next postcode as I came back from the shop early Saturday morning with milk (we gave up on the delivery as they were incompetent fucks), as he was getting ready to drive to work. It’s a bit of a difference from the Kia Venga diesel he’s been driving for the last eighteen months. Not convinced I’d want to be refuelling the new beast.

I’m in town nice and early on Saturday morning, the shops aren’t open yet, and the only people milling about are those waiting for the shops to open. Not because they want to start shopping, only because the poor sods have to go and work there.

Maccy D’s is open however. I’m just not sure the staff are awake though. They are struggling to tell the difference between eat in and take away. A family wanted to take away only to be given a tray with all their food and drink piled on. I wanted to eat in, but mine arrived in a paper bag. None of the ordering machines were giving out receipts. And the twelve-year-old who put my order together in the bag called out the wrong order number. Twice. And speaking of their machines they are really pushing their new rewards app. Three times I had to say no, just give me the fucking option to order food. I’m not sure it’s going to convince me to use the app. It’s more likely to make me not use Maccy d’s full stop.

I took my customary window seat, and had a better view than usual, as the dodgy, cash only, phone accessories and sunglasses trailer wasn’t blocking most of the vista. There were a lot of people who looked as if they wished they were anywhere else apart from trudging to work. Can’t say I blame them.

And with the announcement of another Bank Holiday this year for the Queen’s funeral, I’m not convinced I want to go to work either, as it will be me who needs to go into the system and update all the Bank Holiday calendars and give all the shift staff an extra eight hours holiday entitlement for the year.

Not sure why County Mall has a massive globe hanging from the roof. It would appear that if Crawley can’t go to the world, then the world must come to Crawley.

The Crawley game, as all football game at all levels, has been postponed. A bit of a shame as Gillingham are struggling to win as well, and it might have been a good time to play them. Now it will be played on a random Tuesday night, probably just after they hit a streak of good form.

I will get some sport this weekend though. F1 is still going ahead, so there will be the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon. And the NFL is back. After reigning Superbowl champions the Rams got a good shellacking Thursday night (always satisfying to type that), this evening will see the rest of the NFL get involved. Scott Hansen will utter those immortal words at 6pm. ‘Seven hours of commercial free football start now.’ The 49ers start their season against the Bears, who are ranked dead last in the NFL power rankings, and as we are ranked third (not turd as the Irish may say), history tells us it means we will struggle like fuck and try our best to lose the game, only to scrape to a narrow win late on.

Not Going Hung(a)ry

We have holiday time booked off for late September, and last night we were very close to actually going abroad. So much so we had booked flights to Budapest, only to have to cancel them. Although Money Supermarket had Hungary down as a place to go to where there are no restrictions to coming back to the UK, the Hungarian government don’t quite see it the same way. They insist on two fit to travel negative COVID-19 tests to be taken within five days of travel to the country. The NHS (rightly) don’t do tests for use for fit for travel, so it would have meant four private tests at £130 a pop, and still no guarantee of being let into the country. The other option is fourteen days quarantine on arrival, not ideal when the plan was to go for four nights.

Other places Money Supermarket recommended as safe to go to and get back from included EU countries such as Guadeloupe in the Caribbean or Reunion in the Indian Ocean (both French dependencies), and Norway, which was also on the non EU list. Along with Liechtenstein and San Marino, both of whom have no airports and so can only be reached by entering / exiting from Austria / Switzerland and Italy respectively, all of whom are on the non-travel list.

Thanks for that you clowns.

Speaking of clowns, there’s the cleaner at work. Now keeping the place clean in these COVID times is important, and mopping floors forms part of that. But for the love of God, stop putting the wet floor sign inside where you’ve just cleaned. I (and others) can’t see through doors, so when opening the door, and in the second or so before the light comes on, I’ve stepped on the wet floor and / or tripped over the effing sign. For crying out loud, show some common sense and put the warning sign outside the door, in the light, and give us all a chance.

On Monday morning I used one of the face masks work sent us as I got my week’s supplies at Lidl. After leaving the shop and getting into the car I left it in the well under the hand brake. Wednesday morning I went to use it, but it wasn’t in the car. I thought I might have put it in my bag, but after emptying all eighteen pockets and compartments I still had no mask. It wasn’t on my desk or in my locker, and it wasn’t at home. Thursday afternoon as I’m packing up, there in my notebook pocket of my bag was a facemask, a second one as I’d got another from home, and that was in the car. The aliens are here and they are effing with me.

 Friday was horrific. A bloke – wearing just jogging bottoms – had a go at me because I was wearing a mask. Then someone had their head in the car window and got the ar5e cos I told them to eff off. And once at work, the day was littered with dealing with people I hate, people who have lied about me and tried to get me sacked before and act as if I won’t remember. Every little query I had got on every single nerve. I left early before I went postal.

Weather forecasters had been telling us of tremendous thunderstorms, and it could be seen on the news that there had been vicious storms all around the country. Apart from in Crawley, where although rain had been promised for days it only managed two minutes of Irish Mist. We didn’t go out because of the threat of rain, and even when we went for early dinner to the Greyhound, the dark clouds didn’t actually deposit anything, despite the predicted 92% chance of rain.

Sunday didn’t look like rain, and in an attempt to drag me out of my ennui, Helen suggested going to Hove, saying it had a much lower chance of rain than Crawley. Therefore of course, by the time we’d gotten to the Burgess Hill turn off on the A23 you could cut your way through the rain with a knife. Even the time honoured tradition of feeding me ice cream failed to stop the meh! grumpiness. Ice cream sundae from Marrocco’s was eaten in a shelter overlooking the beach, as they weren’t letting people who were only eating ice cream sit inside.

Whilst sat there we could see there was clear sky coming across the channel, and by the time we’d got back to the car and moved up to a car park by the town hall it had stopped raining. We had a stroll around Hove, admiring the buildings (well Helen was). There is plenty to see and photograph, but being in full CBA mode, I didn’t even take the camera out of its case. There are days when the meh! can’t be shaken off. There had been rain at home whilst we were out, but I only know this because there was a bit of water in the bowl Charlie had deposited in the garden. Everything was still bone dry.

Monday, back to the fun factory. I’d like to say my ennui had passed, but I’d be lying, but at least the level of annoying gits trying to contact me had reduced. I did have a different e-mail from the National Lottery at the weekend, a prize that wasn’t £2.90, but instead a whopping £30, still not enough to retire on. Going in to check it showed me the history over the last year, and it turns out I’ve had 29 lucky dips as prizes in the last twelve months.

On one of my many trips past the reflection room I am still disappointed to see there are no mirrors in there, even after all this time.

I got home Tuesday evening to find the path to the front door blocked by a seven foot high, four foot by four foot wide cardboard box. The new garden furniture had arrived, all in the same box. The evening consisted of unpacking said box and transporting most of its contents through the house. The longest part of the seating set had to be taken around the houses to the park and lifted over the back fence. Even with the massive box there was still an amount of self-assembly required; which kept me busy for a couple of hours and out of my ennui. Mainly because it required the use of allen keys to tighten the bolts, but in spaces that only allowed for half a turn at a time, and allen keys that might as well have been made from aluminium as they became circular before all the bolts could be tightened properly. I had to dig out some heavy duty ones from my own tool kit.

Of course, now that the new garden furniture has turned up, so has the rain. Fortunately Helen had also bought a cover for the furniture and had used it before the ceaseless rain set in for the month. There’s more chance of the furniture being washed away by the rain than being able to use it for sitting on.

On the plus side for me, Monday’s #vss365 tweet had the biggest response of any VSS I’ve done and the most of any tweet I’ve posted; picking up likes, retweets, comments, and getting me new followers (only a couple short of two thousand now). But I’m not gaining followers as quickly as Charlie’s twitter feed, so even on social media I’m being out-performed by the damn dog, at the rate he’s picking up followers he’ll have more than me by the end of the year.

And hump day is at an end, but I’m still left with more hump than a caravan of camels. Another lottery draw tonight, so fingers crossed, a decent win would mean I could leave work and reduce the number of places I’m miserable in.