I was sent a link by a friend to this: Dimitri the Stud
Frightening, just frightening. He's either a very clever man with a cruelly ironic sense of humour who likes to mock predatory men or he is a grade A maniac who should be under close observation in an institution of some variety. I suspect it's the latter and I am 86% certain that he is a serial killer with bodies in his freezer. If this lunatic left a message like that on my answerphone I would throw the phone in the canal and move to a different city, just in case he ever tracked me down or appeared in the same bar as me again.
Further investigation on the charming Dimitri revealed his website.
I hope for the safety of the woman of the US that this guy is a joker and not for real, I really do.
p.s. I have been informed that the link crashed someone's machine, if that's the case the delightful Dimitri can also be found on YouTube here!
And so that time of year rolls around again and it's car tax time. I had been waiting for the postal reminder to arrive with the reference number on it that would allow me to renew the damn thing online. The post arrives this morning. the day that the current tax disc expires - no reminder. So I decide to ring them from work and renew it over the phone. If only life were so simple. After spending 20 minutes pressing various options from the automated idiot-line I eventually got hold of an operator. I might as well have stuck with the automated Welshman for all the help the operator was.
Him: Hello, welcome to DVLA customerline. Can I help you?
Me: Yes. I've not received a reminder for my car tax which expires today and I was wondering how if I can pay over hte phone.
Him: Do you have your reminder?
Me: Er, no. That's why I'm ringing.
Him: Ooooh. Let's have a look why you didn't get one. Ah, is this (reads out address) where you live?
Me: No. Not even slightly, in fact I don't think I've ever actually been to Surrey.
Him: So why is that address on your file?
Me: Your guess is as good as mine. It definately isn't because i've ever lived there.
Him: So, do you want to pay on the telephone?
Me: Yes, that'd be great.
Him: Well that's fine. You can do that because we give you 14 days grace to sort the disc out.
Me: That's great, I didn't know that.
Him: But you will have to take your car off the road from midnight tonight until the disc arrives in the post in a few days time.
Me: Pardon?
Him: Well it's illegal to drive without displaying a valid tax disc so as of midnight you'll have to take your car off the road. If you don't you'll automatically be fined £80 and receive some licence points.
Me: So when you say that there is a grace period of 14 days what you mean is that there is no grace period and if you drive the damn thing then you're going to get fined.
Him: Yes, indeed.
Me: Is there any right of appeal since the DVLA sent my reminder to somewhere I've never been?
Him: No, 'fraid not. No right of appeal. You'll have to take your ownership papers to the post office with your insurance certificate and get a disc there and then if you want to drive the car.
Me: But I'm at work till 5, a full hour after our post office shuts.
Him: (gleefully) Oh dear. You'll have to take it off the road then won't you?
Well thank you for your help young man. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpit hair, you sarcastic little shit. Customer service my backside.
Everyone hates paying car tax, everyone thinks it's a rip off and then to rub your nose in it even further they make it as difficult as humanly possible to renew the bloody thing.
Congratulations to the DVLA - setting the gold standard in petty minded, paper based, ridiculously archaic systems.
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Why is that sometimes we do really stupid things? Things we know are a dumb idea. We think about them, realise they will not lead us to our finest hour then do it anyway.
Watching scary films before bed.
I was blessed with a ridiculously active imagination. It's so big that it took over the space where my common sense should be. This means that scary films aren't a very good plan for me at the best of times, I always end up glueing the dog to my ankles to warn me of psychotic clowns under the bed and the suchlike. With this in mind I cannot imagine why it seemed like a good idea to watch 'The Grudge' before bed last night.
Result: It's 4am and I'm awake because I need a pee. However I know perfectly well that if I go for a wee I'm going to be disturbed mid-flow by either a hairy thing with demonic eyes growing out of a corner of the ceiling or a small, greenish dead boy who makes cat noises and kills people. Neither of these is an appealing prospect. Applying the tiny 'logic' portion of my brain I tell myself that I go for a whizz most nights and nothing has yet attempted to kill me while I've been on the john but it isn't working. Tonight's the night. Eventually it comes to a stark choice - go to the loo or pee in the bed. So off I scamper to the bathroom, taking the dog with me for protection and prior warning of anything sinister approaching. It's official - I'm a prat.
Cocktails
They look so lovely in their fancy glasses, all bright colours and exotic fruits and fizzy flavour. They look so innocent and hey, they must be mainly mixer surely? So you have three and they go down so nicely. By this point things are beginning to look warm and fuzzy but since the cocktails are hugely expensive you have a glass of wine instead. Followed by a vodka because too much wine makes you sleepy. There's a little voice at the back of your head trying to tell you something but you can't hear it over the din of the voice telling you that you are definately not pissed and another vodka is a brilliant idea. After this things get a little bit hazy and for all you know you could be drinking cat piss. You wouldn't even care.
Result - The hangover gnome has visited you as you slept. Not only has he beaten you round the head and by the feeling in your stomach, possibly poisoned you as well, he's stolen one of your shoes, your cash card and your jacket plus he's left a traffic cone and a 'For Sale' sign in the corner of your room. You need water but you know if you move your head more than 2 inches to either side you're going to die. You're never going to drink cocktails again. You are an embarrassment to yourself, your family and anyone who has ever met you. And you stink.
Stroppy Emails
So you've had another email from the stroppy bastard at work who always seems to be trying to stir up trouble. He's trying to land you in the shit again. It's his fuck upo but he's tryng to make out like it's your fault and he's being very rude. You know what you have to do, you have to leave it ten minutes until you've calmed down then you have to type a very calm and rational email explaining what has gone wrong and asking if you can have a chat about this breakdown in communications. But what is this? While you've been thinking about this calm and rational response, your fingers have been acting entirely of their own accord, they've been typing merrily, informing the email sender that it's his fuck up, not yours and that you kept evidence to prove it because you know damn well he's a back-stabbing bitch who loves to drop others in it. Your fingers are informing him that he shouldn't let inadequecies in his own work and social life turn him into a poisonous queen who nobody likes. Don't send it, don't send it, don't....oh shit. It's gone.
Result: You've been hauled in by the boss for a lecture on anger management. Is there any more delightful way to spend an afternoon?
One day I'll learn to be sensible. Until then I shall be weathering the shitstorm as best I can. Umbrellas up ladies and gents, it's hit the fan again!!
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Well I'm back from my holidays and I had a bloody good time. Actually I've been back a few days but all my time has been taken up by laundry and dealing with the titanic level of work-whinging that has built up in my inbox and post heap while I've been away. I would write a full account of holiday but I was there for ten days and I suspect I'd bore even myself writing about ten days worth of holiday, so instead I will list a few of the good and the not-so-good things.
Great Holiday Stuff.
- It was SOOO relaxing. As you can see:
That is Cass in the pool, showing us all what a stressful place 'holiday' is and the chap under the newspaper is Justin. Disappointingly he did not have newsprint all over his face when he woke up.
- The marina was gorgeous.
My dad was thinking of buying a yacht when he retires and in Vilamoura Marina I found the perfect one. Now admittedly it might have been a tiny bit more than he was originally thinking of spending but a few extra years working would easily cover the cost. About 490 years should just about do it. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a picture because it had gates to stop the plebs like me getting anywhere near the rich people and causing a nuisance but put it this way – don’t think dinghy, think Royal Yacht Britannia.
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There was a great deal of general silliness and drunkeness, mainly revolving around Jagermeister (tastes like Covonia cough medicine for anyone who has not had the dubious pleasure of making its acquaintance. Makes everyone get very very very loud.). It can have unfortunate side effects though – my other half got very very loud and lairy on the Jager and finished the evening by doing a head first swan-dive into the pool, fully clothed, at 3am. So now there is a video on Facebook of me standing by the pool, hands on hips, bellowing like a Cheapside fishwife “For chrissakes get out of the fucking pool you twat”. Very ladylike, a fine demonstration of the class for which I am famed.
Really, since it was just a generally great holiday it’s difficult to pinpoint specific good things to mention, however the bad things are easier to itemise.
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The flight out. Oh god, how to describe the flight out. It was a nerve-jangling sensory assault on every level. We were herded on like a flock of sheep and squished into faux-leather seats with approx 3 inches of legroom per person. Finally I managed to somehow fold all 5ft 10 of me into the tiny space, at which point the personin front of me reclined their seat, impaling me and almost shattering my hips. Which was nice. Then the final person appraoched the trio of seats behind me. But’s what’s this? She’s carrying a toddler and there’s only threee seats. Where on earth is that child going to sit? On her knee directly behind me it would seem. 3 whole hours of being kicked repeatedly in the back and listening to ‘In the Night Fucking Garden’ (that might not be the actual full title of the mind-alteringly annoying CD they played on repeat for the entire flight). Still, the CD was from time to time (every 4 minutes) drowned out by the ear splitting nasal shrieks of the child in the seat in front who clearly had a seriously low boredom threshold. When we got off the flight, me and Micah had come to an agreement that we were never going on holiday again until we could afford to fly with a decent airline and preferably business class. This was when our mental state had levelled off enough for us to attempt speech.
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The bed in the villa. It was satanically uncomfortable, a bit like sleeping on sideboard with sheets on. It came complete with two cotton-clad rooftiles which the brochure laughingly described as ‘pillows’. The only way you could sleep on the bed was to get monumentally pissed. The one night I attempted to sleep on it sober I had to put a jacket and socks on and sleep on top of the sheet and blanket because the bruise on my hip created by the springs from the previous night’s kip was giving me gyp.
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The cold. Some bastard gave Cass’s husband a cold which he brought on holiday. It took us down one by one until dinner in the villa sounded like the TB ward in a Victorian sanitorium.
All in all it was a bloody good holiday and I'm not at all impressed to be back at work!
My flight leaves for Portugal in 12 hours. 12 hours and I cannot fr the life of me make my suitcase fit the sodding weight restriction. I've jettisoned 13 bottles of nail varnish, some sun cream and a Jilly Cooper and still the damn thing is sitting stubbornly at 28 kilos. Who the hell is able to survive for ten days with 25 measly kilos of luggage? It's not right. And I weigh miles less than the lads, that means that per person they are taking up more available weight than me. I don't think is at all fair and that smaller people with larger luggage needs, like myself, should be allowed a little leeway on the weight issue.
I've been spraytanned. I hope to god that she was telling the truth when she said that it turned out a nice even golden brown when you shower it off because currently I look like a darkly freckled space monster. It's a look that could most kindly be described as 'unusual'.
I'm going to need a holiday to recover from my holiday preparations. Still, at least I know what does and doesn't need to go in the little plastic bag at security, won't be making THAT mistake again.
Bon voyage folks, see you when I get home. Assuming I'm not languishing in Strangeways prison for trying to smuggle illegal quantites of Sure deodorant through Manchester airport of course.
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The last Tuesday before my holiday in Portugal - this time next Tuesday I'll be spray-tanned a charming shade of mid-orange and I'll be sitting by the pool drinking fruity cocktails and contemplating how marvellous it is that I don't have to be up at 6.40am for work in the morning. In the meantime, here are my Tuesday thoughts:
Sinking my Dinghy:
- Wine limits. Why must we have them? This country is run by fuckwits who don't believe they are earning their salaries unless they are telling us that what we do is unhealthy. Now they've finished persuading us that smokers are akin to paedophiles in the 'bad stuff' lists, they've started on booze. I'm sat in front of the telly, having a relaxing glass of shiraz cabernet and what do I get? Some stupid public health advert telling me that because I'm middle class and like a glass of wine in an evening my liver is going to implode and I'm going to die. Well they can just piss off because I'm going to die at some point anyway and I'd rather go out in a blaze of drunken glory than nibbling on a celery stick. Besides, I've worked with 90 year olds and there's no way I want to live to be that old.
- I have a cold. Not really much to say about it other than that Kleenex balsam tissues are a truly fabulous invention.
- Everything in this country is SO expensive. Everything. It's mental.
Floating my boat
- I go on holiday in 3 and a bit days, yay!!
- I've almost finished ripping all my CDs to my mp3 meaning I won't have to lug half a ton of CDs to Portugal because I couldn't decide which to leave behind.
- It's sunny outside and I've had a day off work. All is right with the world.
- I am currently accessorising my outfit with a glass of chilled chablis. Bollocks to the health nazis, bums up folks, cheers!!
Because I am officially the clumsiest pillock this side of the Equator, I managed to snap the stem off one of the wine glasses we got as a wedding present from Grandmother just by taking it off the shelf. So I can now look forward to an evening of trawling the internet to see if anyone out there is, by any strange coincidence, trying to sell any of this particular brand and make of wineglass.
I have no one to blame but myself.
Bugger.
I was going to write about the second bit of my holiday in Helsinki but stupidly I decided to have a look at the BBC news website first and there I found this. So I have been distracted by my need to rant.
Let's start with an irrefutable fact shall we? This country is royally fucked and everyone in the US and Europe is laughing at us. We are paying almost £6 a gallon (which is roughly 11 US dollars a gallon for anyone in the US), the pension fund has been plundered by Gordon Clown, the po-faced bastard in charge. There are tens of thousands of people who are just choosing not to bother working and are living on the state, the NHS is crumbling, people can't get a dentist for love nor money, the education system is shit, many kids are leaving it without the basic ability to read and write. Our economy is a shambles, house prices are falling, food prices, taxes and bills are rising above the salary levels of more and more people. The streets are full of feral kids carrying and using knives. So, out of all these concerns for the British citizen, which do you think is the most pressing one our MPs?
Answer: None of the above. So if it's none of these, surely there must be something really dreadful going on that has caught their attention? Yes there is. The British public, who have up to now behaved like tame cash cow crapping blank cheques into the outstretched hands of the arrogant tosspieces that run the country, have rebelled. They are now calling for transparency, for MPs expenses to be made public. While I'm sure the majority of MPs are honest and decent people (or those who aren't in the Labour party anyway), some MPs seem to be getting distinctly antsy about this idea. As well they might. Items paid for by the taxpayer that have been revealed recently include the installation of mock Tudor gabling to ex deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's enormous grace and favour home, Margeret Beckett's window cleaner, cleaners for a number of politicians and Gordon Brown's SKY susbscription. Tony Blair, in common with many senior ministers, was claiming expenses for a second home despite having a large grace and favour home in London. If this is the crap that has surfaced on the lake of politics so far, you can be certain that there are more shopping trolleys and old bicycles lurking in the waters that haven't yet been spotted. And our MPs want it to stay that way. This is why they are now trying to get in place a new system, a system that would avoid the need for transparency and an end to the public being able to see what they claim for.
The new system? A yearly payment of £23 000 per MP to cover the cost of running their second home. £23 000. I don't know how much your home costs to run but I can tell you that if mine cost £22k a year I would be right up shit street, or more to the point, homeless. I know for a fact that you can runa home in London for less than £23 000 a year because my brother and his wife are doing just that. So at a time when Britain's economy is teetering on the edge of recession, the best thing our MPs can find to do is to ensure that the feathering of their own nests isn't interrupted by the proletariat demanding honesty. Makes you proud to be British doesn't it?
My contempt for these revolting vultures who have driven the country off a cliff and are now picking over the corpse knows no bounds.
And so we were ready. We'd managed to pack everything, remember our passports and tickets and we'd arrived at the airport ready and raring to fly to Helsinki for my cousin's wedding. As we go into the check in hall we can hear a god almighty bellowing, people are cringing backwards from the strident tones echoing across the space, what on earth could it be? Ah yes, it's my auntie Sue, cheerfully informing my second cousin Rene (and the rest of Manchester Airport) that she's having terrible trouble with her sinusus, can't small or taste anything. Yep, it's my family, the full Northern contingent (minus my uncle Peter) and we're all off to Finland together.
So we get checked in and go through to security where we have the inevitable conversatoin about what does and doesn't class as liquid so what does and doesn't need to go into little clear plastic bags. Eventually we come to the conclusion that lipgloss IS liquid and in they go. The security man confiscates my bottled water and has a discussion with Micah about his aftershave which is eventually given back to him. He puts it into his backpack but crucially (as you will see) forgets to put it in a plastic bag. And off we go to x-ray.
Me and my belongings go through fine. Micah of course sets the machine off and he's taken to one side to have his shoes searched. As was my cousin Rachel whose flip flops seemed to have caused an undue amount of interest. Quite how much Semtex you can get into a pair of flip flops is a mystery to me but anyway, eventually they gave them back.
Our belongings come through the x ray machine. I pick up my stuff and then notice that a fierce looking woman with horrendous split ends and badly applied makeup is clutching Micah's rucksack. It's at this point that things go a bit pear shaped.
ME: Is there a problem with the bag?
HER: Is this your bag?
ME: No, it's my husband's bag, is there something wrong with it?
HER: We are extremely suspicious about why he has undeclared liquids in it. You've declared your liquids and he hasn't. I am VERY suspicious.
ME: Oh right. Fine.
HER (loudly): BUT IT ISN'T FINE IS IT MADAM??? It isn't fine AT ALL.
Me: Riiiiiiight. (beckons Micah over).
So she rummages about for a bit and then triumphantly pulls out a can of Sure for men deoderant, his aftershave and a pot of Oxy cleansing pads for skin.
HER: So? What's your explanation?
MICAH: The lady in the other security room just checked the aftershave and gave it back to me.
HER: Well why, pray tell me, isn't it in a plastic bag? Everyone else manages the plastic bag thing, can you give me a good reason why you can't? I am MOST suspicious. And what about the other stuff?
ME: I didn't realise deoderant classed as liquid. And the pot isn't liquid, it's little skin cleaning pads.
HER (picking up the can and shaking it then injecting more sarcasm than I ever believed possible into her tone): Er what's this I hear in there, oh, listen, it's liquid.
ME (struggling manfully not to punch her between the eyes): Sorry, it didn't occur to me to class it as a liquid.
HER (glaring at me): Well excuse me but you've put all your liquids into a bag so you clearly know what a liquid is so you are making a hypocrisy of what you're saying aren't you? And that makes me suspicious.
By now I'm biting my lip, steam is beginning to issue from my ears and my grip on my temper is getting very tenuous.
ME: But I haven't got deoderant in my bag so I didnt think about it.
HER: I don't need and I'm not having any smart remarks from you so I suggest you cut it out.
ME: I wasn't being smart, I was just saying........
HER (grabbing MY bag of stuff and his and grinning smugly): So now ALL of this is going to have to go through x ray and we'll just see what they allow you two smart mouths to keep.
She strides off to the x ray machine and you can lip read her saying "Can you believe the nerve of them" to the x ray guy. Micah is too thunderstruck to say anything and I'm too busy wrestling with my increasingly rising temper to comment.
She returns and resentfully hands me back my plastic bag of toiletries.
HER: They say you can have this back.
Mistakenly, I attempt to diffuse the atmosphere with humour.
ME: Ah go on, don't bin his aftershave, it was well expensive!
Her eyebrows shoot so far up her forehead that for a moment I suspect they are going to take off from the top of her head and circle the room. She turns an odd shade of purple and sends daggers from her eyes in my direction.
HER (shouting): AND SO, I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW, IS EMPLOYING 20 GUARDS TO HAND OUT PLASTIC BAGS TO THE LIKES OF YOU WHO CAN'T EVEN GET IT RIGHT.
I resist the urge to inform her that there were only 2 guards handing out plastic bags and since they probably did an 8 hour shift it was unlikely that the airport employed 20 of them. I also don't make the blindingly obvious statement that I DID get it right, it was Micah that didn't. Even through the fog of anger I realise that this wouldn't be the wisest course of action, especially as she seemed to have attended the Adolf Hitler school of Customer Service.
HER (smugly holding up the deoderant): Well, that’s gone for a start (chucks it in a bin wearing a huge grin) and so, you’ll no doubt be pleased to know, is THIS (and she chucks the cleansing pads in as well).
We both stare at the aftershave. It’s like a standoff at the Alamo. Eventually she picks it up.
HER (not looking at all pleased) The x ray operative says you can have this (thrusts it in my direction) back.
I grin. I can’t help it. The aftershave was the sticking point and despite the fact that this rat-faced little bitch with a power complex had tried her utmost, she’d failed to get it confiscated. She couldn’t resist a comeback.
HER (again, loading on the sarcasm): And next time, if you two could at least attempt to adhere to the rules??
ME: Well I’ll certainly try. But I’d hate to miss another encounter as pleasant as this one.
We walk away. Rat-Face glares after us. She has lost and she knows it. Despite her every provocation I haven’t lost my temper so she hasn’t been able to have me sat on by men with sub-machine guns, I have managed not to inform her that just because she hasn’t got laid since 1993 and she’ s in a shit-boring job, just because none of her colleagues will sit with her at lunch and she never learned how to apply makeup properly is no reason to be rude to people who are going on holiday.
And so on we proceed to the plane.
Next time: Learning some Finnish, a trip on a bus, a Finnish wedding and the lairiest drunk I’ve ever met in my life.