Scargill

When I got up this morning to read the papers, I could not believe my eyes. Cameras on every street corner watching our every move is one thing.. but Town Halls checking our waste to see what colour we are is another thing ENTIRELY.

In the DAILY TELEGRAPH today (Thursday July 22, 2010 page 8 (26 years after 1984)) we read that NINETY councils have been secretly searching through household rubbish for “clues to families’ race, social class and wealth”. Can you believe this!!!

Just WHAT give these taxpayer-funded morons the right to spend their working hours doing this, I ask? This is nothing less than I’d expect from the RUSSIAN SECRET POLICE and it’s happening right here in BRITAIN!

Apparently, more than 10,000 families were targeted last year. NO this isn’t some unofficial socialist time wasting – this was OFFICIAL POLICY – GOVERNMENT GUIDANCE would you believe!!!

Government guidelines said “Ideally you do not want to inform the public of an audit taking place, as this could alter their disposal behaviour”.  Or, to put it another way, just FEEL FREE to go and do a bit of SUBVERSIVE SPYING on the taxpayers.

When I finish this, I’ll be writing directly to my local council to ask them what their policy WAS and what it is NOW. I suggest you do the same!

Today I  embarked on the 11.30am from Newcastle to London Kings Cross, having purchased a first class ticket, expecting a comfortable ride to London during which I could get a bite to eat and some work done. Given the cost of first class tickets I don’t think that’s an excessive requirement.

Sitting in the central station in Newcastle in coach M, I noted that the coach was rather warm. I passed comment to the guard who pointed out that trains often get warmer in stations.

At Durham I pointed out that the coach was still too warm and the guard said they’d reset the heating a couple of times. At this time the WIFI went dead… and so I took the opportunity to take a break and order a sandwich – egg and cress – the ONLY sandwich which could be classed as "rabbit-food-free" though only just. By the time we got to Darlington it became apparent that if I was going to make use of this shirt into the evening, I’d have to move. Still no sign of my sandwich.

Approaching York, I rang up the WIFI people who said the WIFI was off and they were waiting for the guard to turn it back on! Meanwhile I tackled the guard who said I should considering moving to coach K – which I did. As I got up, I caught the eye of the lady serving sandwiches, who came offering 3 lettuce-enhanced alternatives to egg and cress as they didn’t have any left (none of which had stopped her accomplice from originally taking my money off me. She said they may be able to pick an egg and cress up at the next stop.

We’re now well on our way past YORK and still no sandwich. The WIFI in coach K appears to be working and it’s marginally cooler in here. My shirt may just last the day.

For First class travel this is all PATHETIC. What is East Coast Railways going to do to compensate me for an utterly ruined journey I wonder? Don’t hold your breath

This just blew me out of the water – enjoy…

It looks like the morons at Orange are at it again… regular readers will know of the struggles I’ve had with them over the years…

The last time we were in the Orange store, they offered us inexpensive home broadband as we “upgraded” Maureen’s mobile phone. That would be around 3 weeks ago. We duly signed the papers, took the new phone and went about our business.

A couple of days later, I tried the broadband (not REALLY expecting it to work quite so soon but keen to at least get it set up). It immediately struck me that I’d need a username and password for the modem – so I rang up Orange. They confirmed the order but we were not yet on the system so they could not give us the information.

At that point both Maureen and I had to leave the country and head for the USA. We spent 2 weeks over there during which time her sparkly new Android phone from Orange simply would not connect. Orange were useless during this time as they had NO idea why it would not work and could only offer that I swap SIMS with my iPhone, purely to determine if the SIM was at fault.. or the PHONE was at fault. It was the phone.  On the last day in the states, at the airport, her phone started to work all by itself!

Today I rang Orange to get the username and password and ended up talking to some mindless idiot from a call centre in India. “I’m sorry but I can’t be helping you today as you are not the holder of the contract” – he said, despite being reminded that this was on MY mobile phone bill and I signed the contract at the Orange store.  I left it until Maureen returned.

I just had a very upset wife on the phone. Firstly the broadband won’t be on for another 3 weeks because they screwed something up and didn’t bother to get in touch… and another mindless call centre idiot after very long and convoluted conversation, told her that the “phone was not designed for International use”.  I should point out that this is the internationally used HTC Desire on Android, designed somewhere in deepest Asia and sold all over the world.

Bunch of complete idiots. As soon as I find the time to get to the Orange store, one of their employees is going to have a very hard day…