Sunday, August 28, 2005

Pisa - the action, or Florence - time for bed

Blogs here are a bit like my Italian – fairly scarce in the existence department; the following is a partial remedy. S and her sister kindly arranged a short break in a Pisa hotel and we (accompanied by my brother-in-law, of course) duly flew from Bournemouth International (15 minutes away) to Pisa (2 hours away) at a quarter past bleary-eyed-and-bodied o’clock on Monday morning and returned last Thursday evening. The whole (bed & breakfast and return flights) shebang (all booked on the intermanet) was remarkably cheap. Unfortunately, none of us had an O-level or GCSE in Italian Menu Translation, so eating out while we were there was a kind of culinary mystery tour. The Leaning Tower was:- (1) marvellous and (2) a bloody long walk from the railway station. Several hundred Japanese people will hope to fool their relatives into thinking that they were holding the tower up – no doubt with hilarious consequences. Florence was:- (1) very lovely indeed and (2) extremely tiring to walk around. We certainly did not regret the decision to take two open-topped bus tours around and above the city. It was nice to have a sit down for a while – both tours took an hour each. You paid on one tour bus and the ticket was valid for 24 hours on either of the routes covered. This lessened the impact of the €20 per person charge somewhat. For now, you will have to make do with just a handful of pictures. First, a view from the hotel swimming pool. A fine pair of knockers in Florence. A lovely holiday spot. Can you help? I can’t for the life of me think of a limerick using this as a basis. Remind you of anyone? There could be more!

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Reading out of all proportion

One of the bewildering twists and turns of my 37-year local government career actually resulted in my going berserk at Reading (Berks) – as opposed to Reading (Books). It was a simple chain of events. Oh, and the Books thing was just a cheap joke. I worked in Rochdale for just under six years from 1974 to 1979 then got a job back in Bournemouth, where I was born and had begun an illustrious local government career in October 1966! As you may have already read, there were some initial advantages to the job at that time! Upon the return to my home town, there was a recession in the North West and thousands of workers were suffering a three-day week. The property market was therefore pretty stagnant in that area and I spent the next two years (the time it took to sell our house) travelling backwards and forwards on trains. The one I mostly caught (on every other Friday) was the daily 09.26 service (or was it the 09.24? it seemed to matter in them days) from Bournemouth Central to Manchester Piccadilly, which took a cross-country route (thus involving no changes in London) and took six hours or thereabouts. One of the scheduled stops was Reading and, if memory serves, it was not long after the introduction of the wizzo Inter-City 125 service (so-called because the trains actually went 125 mph – well, when there wasn’t dust or jam on the track), one of which passed through Reading (without stopping) on the way from London to Exeter (I’m sure Hutters or Mr Hedgehog will confirm or deny the factual nature of these witterings). It was, however, quite impressive to see one of these new machines thundering through the station at a rate of knots! Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, going berserk. On my first journey on the jolly old 09.26, we duly arrived at Reading (forwards). Can you see where this is going? I thought I was going to be able to at the time. After some rather unnerving joltings, the train began to leave – arrrgh! – backwards!! Coupled with the entirely irrational (I accept) need to sit facing the direction of travel and the resumption of the journey in a direction completely opposite to that which had been hitherto prevalent, my senses took a turn for the berserkness. I could not understand why we were going in the opposite direction – obviously I was on the wrong train and goodness knows where I would end up, or how much more it would cost me (times were hard). For a short time, I ran amok with a mental machete, chopping the heads off passengers and an assortment of British Rail (remember them?) employees for not telling me I was on a train that was going anywhere other than my desired destination. After I found out that Reading was where the diesel engine was replaced with an electric one and, via a system of intricate points and other nifty railway-type devices, we ended up going in a north-westerly direction as planned, my running amokness subsided and I returned to my seat, mentally apologising to all the people I had hacked to death in my railway information vacuum. When all's said and done, it had been an unnerving experience. Funny how the mind plays tricks.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

The Refreshment Break Scam

When you first started in local government (and, I suspect, any other similar job), you were the lowest form of life, the office junior. You did everyone else’s filing, had to go to the public counter when someone buzzed, answer the telephones and nip out to buy fags for a superior. However, all this administrative drudgery paled into insignificance when compared to the brilliantly conceived but frighteningly simple Refreshment Break Scam. The former junior (promoted to Plan Folding once you had arrived) would instruct you in the finer points of this lucrative process which would supplement your salary of £385 per annum. It is probably best explained with an actual worked example and, as I recall the details for the purpose of this blog, it has just struck me that, of the 16 employees in this particular office, none were women (well, not during normal working hours anyway) – a fact that has never occurred to me before. But that is not part of my tale. You took orders for tea, coffee, plain buttered rolls and cheese rolls in the morning and just tea in the afternoon, then took a tray with teapot/coffeepot to the canteen across the back yard of the building where your orders were filled by Alice, the cook, who always had a cigarette hanging from her mouth, the ash always at the point where it was about to drop (and frequently did into whatever she was cooking, presumably). I don’t know who was worse, Alice or her successor, Betty. After Alice left, you always knew if suet pudding was going to be on the lunch menu because Betty used to walk around wearing just one elastic stocking. But I digress. Supposing that you had taken orders for 10 teas, 6 coffees, 5 buttered rolls and 8 cheese rolls. You would actually order 7 teas, 4 coffees (measuring quantities was by no means an exact science), 8 buttered rolls and 5 cheese rolls. On the way back from the canteen, you would redistribute the cheese from the cheese rolls to populate the 3 buttered rolls needed to make up the number of cheese rolls ordered. When you returned, you always had enough tea and coffee to fulfil the number ordered in the office and the right mix of plain and cheese rolls. Thus, you made a tidy profit and the poor fools suspected nothing!

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

The Power of Advertising

The other day, I received an e-mail from dabs.com, containing an offer for the Motorola RAZR V-3 mobile phone (black version). It said "Lois (yes, really!), by virtue of an arrangement we have made with ‘Dialaphone’ ('the UK’s leading direct mobile phone specialist'), you can pay us just £4.99 per month for 8 months, then £30 a month for the remainder of the period for which you must contract to us (4 months) to get this marvellous piece of kit which is worth – for insurance purposes - £450 or more. You will also get a car charger, a Bluetooth earpiece, a dashboard carrier and, of course, many months of happiness playing with a device that will enable you to capture digital images, connect with your compluter, thus allowing the interchange of sounds and pictures and facilitating, for example, the sending of multiple (or single, of course) text messages using a PC keyboard. You will also receive 200 minutes of free calls per month (any network) and 50 free text messages per month". I was putty in their hands! I have said many times in the past that I probably couldn't justify a mobile phone on contract because my (outgoing) usage does not warrant it. However, this seemed an offer too good to refuse, and I took them up on it. And I have had the phone for almost a week. And it is a luvverly piece of gear. And I have sent a text message to everyone in my address book notifying them of my new number. And I have been walking and driving round Hampshire with an earful of Bluetooth to apparently no avail. Not one person has rung me yet! I’ve even forgotten what the ring tone is! Oh well, who knows? It may prove to have been worthwhile in due course. And perhaps I can go back to Pay As You Go after 12 months! I think I might be a sucker, though!