No place like home a flight to OZ.

Excerpt.
There is no place like home. A Flight to OZ. Out on Kindle 20th October 2013

Chapter One: A Flight Of Fancy

Heading down to Gatwick Airport one sunny Tuesday afternoon in the middle of May was definitely not on my busy agenda six months before, come to think of it three months before, but my wish to see the “Land of plenty” kept pushing and nagging at me until I decided the call needed to be answered. In that 3 short months I had planned out and scheduled my foray over to Sydney Australia (Manly to be precise) and set my course for the adventure of a lifetime. But first (and if you are me this is a BIG first) I had to fly over there via Dubai and then on to Kingsford Smith International. That may be a fun filled time for the majority of the population but for me with my intense dislike of heights it was a huge call, add to that my mechanical knowledge about anything from hydraulics to gas cookers and you see why every noise creak or groan from my aircraft was an imminent disaster about to happen and the plane would be sent tumbling to Mother Earth and Haste la vista one emerging author yours truly..

Despite this minor issue however, I sat in Departures drinking my coffee on the second tier of Gatwick’s many restaurants feeling up for the adventure. It was just bravado I can assure you of that, but I was intent on going and if that was the case I had to fly. I waited the three long hours to board and duly walked the “gangplank” to the plane, it was far bigger than any plane I had been on before, (to those of you who rely on such information to make your life complete it was a Boeing 777) and it had two wings and I can assure you that was very comforting for me. I sat in my seat next to a young Indian woman who was clearly part of a family of four, but I must have looked very threatening because within seconds of them realizing she would be sat next to me for the next seven hours they dumped their young lad in that seat and she promptly moved across one, he must have been all of seven years old, I could almost hear their thought’s and I chuckled to myself, as surely if I was unsafe for her to sit by why would the kid be any better off?  Anyway, after witnessing the family giving me their son as a sacrificial lamb we went through the drill of lifebelts and seat belts at which point I closed my eyes as I didn’t want to be reminded of crashing into the sea or falling out of the sky but thankfully we were soon taxiing down the runway and within a matter of seconds all the throttles let loose and we were airborne.

Now if you like flying, at this point you will be looking out of the window, organising your lunch and selecting your favourite movie. If, like me you are not so keen, the air hostess will be slowly peeling your fingers out of the seat cushion and pushing you back from the “brace for impact” position whilst slapping you very hard across the face to try and stop you yelling at the top of your voice “We are all gonna die!”. This done she smiled at me and asked me if I needed a drink. There is telepathic for you, it must be a pre-requisite at flight attendant school to get the nervous flyer's pissed first so they fall asleep quickest and the rest of the flight will be a cinch.

So with the prospect of alcohol all of a sudden this flying thing started to look a little more acceptable, I asked for a Scotch and smiled at her, I smugly thought to myself that I didn’t get this treatment last time I flew to Holland or France, a couple of stiff Whiskey’s and I will face a dog fight in a Spitfire with no bullets let alone a seven hour flight on a Boeing. My excitement as those of you who do fly regularly was very short lived as I noticed aforementioned hostess trotting down the aisle with a miniature bottle of Whiskey that was a complete understatement of the word miniature in itself, in fact it was so small she had placed the bottle in the glass so that she could find it on the tray when she got to me. That in itself is just a small misdemeanour as I thought all it means is she will use a lot more shoe leather during the flight fetching and carrying beverage of that small amount but then  when it was actually poured it was somewhat like the food you get served, you want it right up to the point it is placed in front of you and you actually smell it, this wasn’t Scotch but more essence of dyed tap water matured and bottled in Kazakhstan from Camel Urine and desert grit. Whatever it was, it resembled Whiskey but it sure didn’t taste like whiskey, in fact I was sure I heard Robbie Burns let out a spine chilling cry as the top was spun from the bottle.

 My bottom lip was now firmly in my lap but I drank it anyway and another five before the hostess said “No more sir”. The fact I could sink half a bottle of Teacher’s Scotch in a normal night’s drinking and still sing every word to “Sweet Chariot” while auditioning for Dancing On Ice while Hollie Willoughby balances on one shoulder should give you a clue that I was not even close to pissed, but the bar was now closed to Mr. James so I had to divert my attention elsewhere from the grumbling engines and flexing wings that were about to break and cause our imminent deaths (that does happen you know). The answer to my prayers came very swiftly and from very close proximity to my seat in the form of the on board entertainment, no, not the TV on the seat in front of me but my fellow passengers or more succinctly the one’s sitting next to me. It may come as no surprise that the Indian female sat in the next but one seat had not suddenly decided to do a belly dance, no far from it in fact she was sat with her head against the TV screen positioned on the seat in front of her in the semi “crash position” I had so perfectly displayed just an hour before during take-off looking like she was praying. She may well have been but it was a little unnerving as to why and I thought to myself if there was something she knew I didn’t did I ought to be joining her? I got my answer when she was still there five and a half hours later, you guessed it she didn’t like flying either, these women eh? Where’s their courage? It’s just a little plane ride…

So I sat there smirking with my arms folded with a cheesy grin overjoyed with the fact that someone else on the plane was actually more nervous than myself, I grabbed my headphones and looked at my TV selection which was full of repeats… but it was also at that point I noticed the seven year old next to me who was busy watching some Indian cartoon and was chuckling and giggling away but also fidgeting. Now trust me I hate fidgets, it’s a real pet hate of mine, topped with that he kept knocking my arm off the arm rest, I know it was his armrest but show some respect young man who is the adult here?  I planned my counter attack with military precision; I duly scrolled through all the movies until I spied the perfect specimen, so I clicked play and sat back with a grin reminiscent of Mr. Bean at his best and waited in anticipation. I was not to be disappointed, I chose “Pirates of The Caribbean at World’s End” simply because I knew damned well he would not be able to resist having a quick peek across at my screen. This of course was the case and before the first hour of the film was up he had joined his mother praying at the monitor in front of him while assuming “that” position as he was so shit scared. I have to admit I sat back in my seat chuckling like some schoolboy who just flicked teachers ass with a paper clip and got away with it, but also very happy that the fidgeting had stopped despite my rather less than honourable method in getting him to cease such behaviour but hey sometimes being the grown up can be fun too!

After all this excitement I thought it may be prudent to take a nap. Well, when I say nap I use the term loosely, have you ever tried to nap on a plane? No…seriously?  Well I tried but I just couldn’t, it was impossible in between the bumps in the invisible air we were flying through and the seat belt warning “bong” coming on to warn us of immediate disaster and the wings dropping off (that happens you know) and the smell of burnt sausage and scrambled egg getting delivered on a trolley that had more rattles than Fisher Price and V-Tech could possibly produce in one lifetime it was a non-starter, top that off with the sound of the toilet being flushed more times than a virgin bride at a swingers party and I was always going to find it a struggle.

 So with sleep out of the question I once again turned to my screen in front of me and selected a few episodes of “The Mentalist” (it reminded me of home as it was all repeats) but at least it helped the time slip by and before I knew what was happening I had wasted an entire hour of my lifetime pre-judging the outcome of an American drama series, which I rarely watched or bothered with at the best of times but I assume having a captive audience is more of a necessity than an optional requirement with most of those programs in any case.
 After what seemed a life sentence sat next to the two Buddha’s who were still chanting for all they were worth (the boy seemed to be shouting parlay?) and the excruciating acting ability of yet more dodgy American drama actors we were more or less about ready to land in Dubai, though at the very mention of that fact the look on the Indian Woman’s face opposite me turned from one of mild panic to sheer terror as we started our descent and I have to admit it was enough to have me in stitches, but it was only matched by the face of her seven year old boy who would be having nightmares for weeks courtesy of Davey Jones locker and one very vindictive Englishman sat next to him. The descent could be seen on the screen in front of me, something the Mother and son were obviously not concerned about as even though they were leaning so close to the screen it wasn’t actually switched on, so I watched as we dropped below Ten thousand feet and found myself calculating in my head just when we would be safe if we dropped out of the sky, the fact it’s about twenty five feet without sustaining serious injury escaped me as I sat there randomly thinking that now we are below ten thousand feet we are safe, so I looked across again at my nervous neighbours and saw that the poor woman had by now grabbed some beads and was holding them tightly in her hand as we headed in-bound to Dubai, I am not sure how they would protect her in a crash but maybe it’s one of those religious things whereby she gets thirty virgins and a Porsche if she keeps hold of her beads for the entire crash, in any case I found myself feeling a little jealous that I didn’t have such a security blanket (or beads) so instead my wondering mind and boredom let my hand wonder to the TV and I switched on my in-flight entertainment to outside cameras…

Now… forgive me if I am being stupid here but you may have got just a small hint that I don’t like heights or planes and especially looking through the windows, but here I was suddenly confronted with a bird’s eye view of the outside, looking down at the ground as well as a strategically placed camera on the top of the tail looking forwards. To say it was poor timing was an understatement, I nearly pinched the woman’s beads and joined her at the temple of in-flight entertainment screens as I saw very small cars travelling directly below me and an airport miles in the distance, I also learned from that view almost immediately that ten thousand feet was still very bloody high and could still kill us all if the wings dropped off (it really does happen you know) so I suddenly shot forward and pressed every button I could get my hand on to blank the view, suddenly The Mentalist looked a good bet even the repeats.  This duly done I slowly sat back in my seat and watched the descent on the screen in a Sat Nav format, much easier and far less graphic! The plane circled once and we slowly coasted towards the runway, I was sure that by the time we landed those beads would have to be surgically removed from the Indian lady next to me, such was the pressure that she was hanging on to them, so I watched her as we gently touched down in Dubai International, a place where my Anglo Saxon fair skin would be put to the test in temperatures reaching thirty eight degrees by the way and to my utter astonishment she calmly sat back in her seat, smiled at her husband and children and went straight back into “mummy” mode.. From sheer terror to complacent caring mummy in the screech of a set of wheels and some terra firma… to be honest I know how she felt, except the Mummy bit of course.

Now, if you have been used to farmers with wellington boots and holes in their jacket pockets while wearing caps that don’t fit and bemoaning how poor they all are then Dubai International will come as quite a culture shock. From the full height waterfall stretching some sixty feet in the air to the gold embossed hand rails on the escalators through to the ornamental pool full of Koi Carp and surrounding vegetation the place was a wonder to behold never mind venturing into the City itself. It was a most beautiful place and very well organised with shuttle trains between gates and young people walking around with “Can I help you” on their T shirts all of them more than able to guide you through this metropolis of an Airport. The shops stretched for half a mile and included every big name you could think of, even the clocks in the walkways were made by Rolex; It was like the Willy Wonka’s of bling, from gold merchants to silversmiths from Dolce and Gabbana, Versace, Lacoste, Calvin Klein, Couch, Gucci you name it they were queueing up for floor space and I can tell you for a country lad from Shropshire this was quite some sight even if my Barclaycard one thousand pound credit limit was as much use as a prayer mat at an English Defence League meeting, it wouldn’t buy me the complimentary display box never mind the jewels that go inside it, but I was still in awe of the place.  

 I did though at this point also realise that I needed to turn my mind to the next flight, I tried to imagine just what fourteen hours on an Airplane would be like given my history but being happy to have got the first seven hours over with was somewhat of a triumph in itself and just how bad could it be? So I headed for a coffee shop to celebrate my success that the wings stayed on and I didn’t fall forty thousand feet to my death (It happens you know). I wondered over to a money bureau as I was clean out of Dirhams, though I have to admit the exchange rate seemed awfully good at six to one but that was until I found out a coffee is nineteen Dirhams, it seems even their God giveth and taketh away.  So there I was sitting at a Costa coffee and soon enough I was asked if I wanted to plug my laptop in and did I know there was free airport Wi-Fi? All the things you would not expect from the same establishment in the UK. I sat down and let my long suffering Facebook buddies know that I was safe and sound on the ground in Dubai followed by the usual horrendous Airport photos from my iPhone with half your body and a third of your face caught in the frame along with three blurred people walking in the background, oh and don’t forget Twitter and all the other social media outlets we tend to inform when we do something remotely different, in fact I am sure I collected another twenty Instagram followers that afternoon too but they only lasted a few hours.  By the time I had done the rounds and let everyone know I was still breathing I was ready to go and line up for the next bout of flying.  I dragged my feet across to check in and looked out on to the runway; there stood the biggest aircraft currently flying passengers in the world today (Airbus A380 for you anoraks again), it looked huge and I was quite heartened by that fact as that meant less turbulence, surely?

As I sat on the plane waiting for everyone to board I noticed that it was actually quite new, it had that lovely new smell about it the same as you get from a new car, it was also very clean which is another sure sign it hadn’t been subjected to any food fights or sick passengers. I was sat just behind the left wing on an aisle seat this time, the size of the wing meant I couldn’t see a lot which heartened me as that meant the ground would be obscured too. As the passengers loaded I noticed the queue was not very long and sure enough within ten minutes everyone was on-board and the doors were being closed, this meant that I had three seats to lie across and sleep on, surely now I could manage to shake hands with Mr. Sandman and meet the rest of his family!  Moments later and we were airborne at the end of the runway, which at the speed we were doing is definitely a good thing, so I keeled over and went to sleep, well I tried to go to sleep, I dozed and that was about it, it was 14 hours of hell and I hated it, but the means justified the ends in my eyes even though I felt every little bump and jolt, I think I may be more suited as a Mariner than a Pilot due to the fact I can swim but definitely not fly.  Thirteen hours and fifty minutes later on what turned out to be a very uneventful flight we lined up for a landing in Kingsford Smith International Airport, we circled over the Harbour bridge and the pilot pointed it out but I of course looked at my feet as the sight of the ground from that high up would have had me once more in the crash position and needing the cushions to be surgically removed, we dropped on to the runway at five minutes past five in the morning and yes you guessed it, it was raining for England only this time it was OZ style.

Enjoy it now.

I am beginning to enjoy my writing very much, in fact it is becoming a way of life. I had the poor fortune of losing one of those items one would take for granted a few months ago while visiting Australia. While I was there the family had a move around and my beloved piano was placed against an adjoining wall. That wall happened to be adjoining our neighbours and they heard every note when i played meaning I lost the ability to play for some considerable time. But as with any instrument it keeps calling you if it is something that enriches your life and so my piano slowly won me over to the point where I had a move around while on my own one afternoon, lo and behold i got my piano to sit against the far wall by using my grey matter and I can't tell you how good it feels to once again play, like seeing an old friend again.
We take so much for granted these days and complain bitterly if things don't go our way, we have become accustomed to having what we want when we want it, something Mother nature never intended for any species as it takes away the ability to fight or work for what you need. The stalking of prey and fight for survival so prevalent in animals translates in the human world to a trip to Sainsbury's and Googling the symptoms of our latest illness, somewhat of a break in tradition as far as the origin of the species is concerned. I wonder just what the distant future holds for us, as I am sure we will evolve as the technology we have now evolves with us leading to a more and more sterile existence, I think I may be glad that I will not be around to witness such a time.

Stop, Look and listen

Distant bells that sing a background sonnet
To the green and pleasant land that stretches out before
The birdsong cuts its way across the shimmering fields
As cattle stand and stare their tails swishing to the beat

The sun sits in the bluest sky no feathered clouds to fear
It's warming blanket smothers every nook and cranny
Only shadows spoil her fun and leave a refuge from her charms
The hot and bothered flee to seek that shaded corner

The gentlest breeze carries heaven's very scent and teases senses
It's warmth and richness lifting up the soul with every breath
Insects sing and dance as if this day will never end
Their gentle background humming belies their manic stance

How sad it is such fayre is offered yet we choose to ignore
For further on beyond the fields that surely hold life's key
A constant stream of metal flows along the blackest stream
Like angry ants they file on through not looking left nor right

To them this show of earth's own soul is of no consequence
Their goal a lonely path that promises rewards of gold and silver
Single minded, ignorant and blinkered to real wealth,
From such shadows I appeared, I ran away and now I am richer than ever.
 
  

Ludlow Hospital Shambles..NHS Waste...Time for Change

Interesting times here in the UK as the Health service finances come under scrutiny once more with billions found wasted on a computer programme that is not even workable. I hope the instigators of this disaster are sent to The Tower as a century or two ago this would have been the case, but oh no we allow such stupidity these days. It is however all the more galling if you are a South Shropshire resident or more pointedly a Ludlow resident as the £127 million pound community hospital proposed and approved over a period of many years now seems to be sitting with it's head in the Health budget cuts noose.
Quite how so-called "experts" can justify wasting billions on one hand and then deny an already hard done by County of much needed services is quite honestly a travesty of the highest proportion. Our very fine MP Philip Dunne has said that there will be some "hard hitting questions" if this hospital is scuppered due to a 1.2 million a year deficit in its running costs, I would suggest that the people in charge ought to join our so called NHS computer experts in The Tower. Society seems to allow for such people to make such blunders and walk away as if it is "just one of those things" I often think back to Lord Archer being jailed for a few years for lying in court, it affected a newspaper and a few egos, yet he received a stiff sentence for his crime, so why should some civil servant who has miscalculated to the tune of billions to this country walk free from such a mess that clearly could cost someone their life?
Perhaps if we started locking some of these fools up for a minimum stretch of ten years they might think twice before launching into another hair-brained scheme that has no hope of working, I for one think they are a disgrace to this Country and should be kicked out of their jobs without further delay at the very least, if you were a tax payer and you owed one thousand pounds you have to pay it and rightly so if its due, but in turn that taxpayer should demand that his hard earned tax contribution isn't handed to Biffo The Bear and spent like water on some hair brained ill conceived pie-eyed illogical computer program that was never required in the first place, those billions would have built many hospitals countrywide and indeed some of that money would would have safe guarded the Ludlow Hospital Ad Infinitum. I hope those idiots who spearheaded this stupidity losing all this money at the same time don't sleep too comfortably in their beds, I am sure their grandparents would have been very proud of them...

The Sunday Roast.

I would imagine the President of the United States is not sleeping quite so well in his bed as he used to. Pushing ahead the vote to bomb Syria while his own country suffers from the affects of the world recession and parts of the USA are also still in various types of disarray from hurricanes and tornado's is a mighty big decision, in fact if I was from New Orleans I would be pretty miffed that several million pounds worth of missiles will be heading for foreign lands while the tin shack you live in drips water and is frighteningly cold and insecure. But aren't all leaders guilty of foreign intervention when in reality their own house needs to be put in order? I am not making light of the atrocities being carried out in Syria, but my guess is without the intervention from so called "allies" the Syrian uprising would have been quashed years ago and chemical weapons would never have been deployed, so in a way we are all responsible for the cruel deaths we see on the TV screens before us.
Dictators as history has all too frequently shown us have a self belief that will lead eventually to thousands and thousands dying simply because they think they are invincible, but I think seeing so much bloodshed is making the world very tired of the West removing a dictator only to have the country split into a million pieces afterwards with all the many factions vying for power. If we leave Syria to its own affairs and stop arming the rebels Assad will take control again and the world will have an uneasy peace. This is not what people want but history shows us we cannot and should not intervene as the outcome is all too common, we get dragged into a conflict that has no end. It should be with a very heavy heart and much consultation that Obama reaches for that red button, if not for the people of Syria then for the people in his own back yard who are suffering from a horrendous lack of financial aid, after all charity begins at home does it not?

The real feel of Autumn is upon us and to be fair we have had a great summer by our standards, in fact a week of sunshine would constitute a summer theses days never mind a whole month! So now we think of heating bills electricity bills becoming larger and larger as we slip towards Christmas time and of course all the energy companies will HAVE to put their prices up as they are starving and destitute. I think its long past time that the UK government took back the powers of these parasitic service companies and brought the bills more into line with other European companies, who actually own the UK supply of energy due to our own mismanagement and apathy, I mean why would a French electricity company risk losing customers at home with higher bills when it can hit the pockets of UK residents instead?  It was mooted this week that the government is looking at buying back the energy supply contracts and running them as a National company, now that would be an election winner if ever I saw one.

I am a big fan of Boris Johnson, he has done much for London and the Olympics was a shining star that will never fade in the hearts of the British people, just how much Boris had to do with it remains to be seen but his conduct during and after the games was excellent. Unusually for Boris I totally disagreed with his proposal this month to penalise trucks in Central London that do not carry a cyclist aware set of equipment while in the City. This is plainly another absurd cost and yet more overheads for an industry that has been hard hit by the recession and in my humble experience of some thirty years driving trucks/buses/cars etc is that our good friend the cyclist is getting a little too much of the cream while disobeying nearly every law in the road traffic act. Admittedly they are very vulnerable and very small compared to trucks but a truck driver cant put his feet on the ground and move his truck two feet from the road in a heartbeat.
 Make no mistake if a truck is in London it's there to work, they pay for the roads the cyclist enjoys and that's how it should be as they do the most damage, but there has to be an element of awareness and self preservation on the behalf of the cyclist, all too often we see them without lights, pedalling on pavements or in a stupid road position that the poor truck driver has to make 44 tonnes compensate for.  I am a keen cyclist, I go up into woods and forests and enjoy it immensely, I am lucky i live in the country.
 I would suggest to Boris that rather than burden the poor haulage industry with yet more legislation to deliver in the capitol that he puts the money into more cycle lanes, or even a training module where a cyclist actually gets to sit in a 44 tonne truck and see the problems they and their two wheeled self powered obstacle in the road actually cause for even the most experienced of heavy haulage driver. When all is said and done, without the services of these huge lorries and the guys that drive and run them we would have no fuel in our tanks or food on our tables and even more ironically the bike shop would have no bikes, so as my Grandad used to say, "Don't flog the willing horse" Boris.

Now on Kindle, hope you enjoy.

Nice to see the first responses are favourable to my poetry book now out on Kindle  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DRJ3OIQ  many thanks to those who have purchased the book and even more so to those that have given it such excellent reviews. My first novel "A False Twilight" is also now out and getting good first reviews, http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00E1RHJFM  if you havent done so already please download for the bargain price of 0.99c and enjoy.

The Sunday Roast. Real Life.

Blaming governments for all our ills is pretty much the standard these days. We moan when they make decisions and we bemoan their lack of decision making.
There is no one single fix available for the huge range of things that any government may encounter yet we turn to them like a frightened congregation turns to it's God in times of trouble. This symptomatic rush to expect a magic wand from our leaders is indeed true folly, yet we still look up to them to provide the answers and when they get caught out spying on us or make decisions we don't accept it soon becomes apparent that our God may just be someone else's Satan, indeed it's a thankless task. The answer is simple, many years ago governments ran departments and national companies yet were seldom seen or heard of, but now they are in the news every minute of the day. Governments have become too involved in our day to day lives because we have cried to them so often about how terrible things are, as a result we have now "over-sensitized" our leaders allowing them to believe we actually want their intervention in everyday life, it has become in affect a "Nannie state" the answer is in our own hands, we need to start taking a little more responsibility for our own actions and hence expect less from government, in return we may gain more freedom, nice thought anyway.

The first of the month arrives and with it the ordeal of getting the kids back to school, new uniforms are all pressed and washed and the worry of new classes and new school's enters the heads of parents and children alike. It's a bitter sweet time as many of us parents will be seeing  our kids go to new schools and face new adventures, the worry never leaves you as a parent but it can be equally stressful on your off spring, something we well remember despite our own advancing years !



I guess we all have times when life is tough, but what happens when those tough times build up over a long period?. You never know just how you will react to such things until they are upon you, of late I guess I have had more than my fair share, life has thrown all its dirty washing at just one man it seems and I happen to be the only one stood up. I watch the atrocities in Syria and around the world and my sanity tells me that there are so many more people worse off, I guess it's like your Grandmothers voice from your childhood, trying in some vain way to bring reason where very little exists. I would be lying if i said I was happy at this precise moment, in fact I don't think I have personally ever felt so low, it's a difficult thing to live with and its at times like these where you need a sense of humour, a very good one, but even that has deserted me. Being a poet and a writer only compounds such issues of feeling so down as so much of a burden is carried with that thought train that rattles continuously through my head like the six a.m express, it never stops.
There is little I can do to stop any of the torment at the moment other than the obvious route out, its a well worn path by much more distinguished folk than I, so I guess for once at least I would be in good company, but I have always lived with the thought that there may be light at the end of the tunnel, though at the moment that theory is being severely tested as the future strays from dark room to darker room. I guess if you have never been in this position these will seem strange words, but to me they knit together like that scarf your favourite auntie used to knit and there lies my biggest worry. Either way I guess my thoughts and deeds will have little or indeed no impact on the world we live in, much like my life up to now, after all "There is always someone worse off" didn't Gran used to say?.

A nice walk in Ludlow...

Had a lovely walk across the top of Whitcliffe above Ludlow this afternoon with my two youngsters, thought I may share it with you, the castle was absolutely stunning as always. Its no surprise that Ludlow is so popular with tourists far and wide, but I view it with mixed emotions as it is where I went to school (Ludlow Grammar School) and where I spent most of my youth and I see it as a very different town to the one I knew back then, but I guess change is inevitable, Hope You enjoy the pictures of our afternoon out.

Happy Holidays :-)

So here we are, August bank Holiday and the annual exodus of over populated Britain heading North for under populated Britain and queueing in the process. This is all greeted with a certain amount of intrigue with the Northern half of the Country as to why anyone would want to leave long queues, bad tempers,ignorant people and being stuffed together like sardines in the big City to sit in long queues, with people with bad tempers, too ignorant to acknowledge you and stuffed like sardines on the M4 and the same when you get to the caravan park/hotel you are heading for is one of life's great mysteries but as they say it takes all sorts!.

The Fracking debate in the South east has been a joy to watch, well from up here in the North it has anyway.
I am not really sure what Fracking does apart from make you double take if someone shouts it to you on a windy day, but my guess is by the fuss being made it will affect day time TV reception in some way as most of the protesters seem fresh from Jeremy Kyle's show, so its plainly hitting a nerve with all those out of work inter-breeding bed hopping DNA tested minority who are as in touch with reality as wrestling on the World Of Sport was on a Saturday afternoon. Who knows if it's good or bad? certainly not me and there is a fair chance MP's don't know either but that seldom stopped them doing stupid things before.

There was a call this week for shoplifters who stole below £50.00 to be handled in-store with the shops own security staff. Now, excuse me for being a dumb ass here but £50.00 to me is a lot of money and if someone deliberately stole that from me I would want the Police to caution them at the very least, it would also give the Police an insight during the arrest into the local community and serve as a barometer to how the local community is being Policed. Telling a hardened drug addict to "never do it again" and if its only "fifty quid" is a ridiculous move and any form of theft is exactly that, theft. It would be more economic to let officers carry iPads and photograph the thief and send his details to an incident room where they can be checked for outstanding warrants etc and then officially cautioned and sent on their way, at least he is in the system and the Officer can go to his next crime instead of getting buried by booking petty thieves into the cells.

While we are on the subject of prisoners it came to my notice this week that many women prisoners in two specific jails are being allowed to ring the general public and ask them about their energy bills. Honestly you couldn't write it, well not unless you are a member of the Prisons authority. Not for these prisoners a bright yellow onesie and a trip to the local park to pick litter in front of everyone they know, oh no, a nice warm office and a chance to annoy the hell out of the general public by ringing them up (usually at teatime... you know the drill) and grill them about how many times they turn a light on or off during the week, so there you have it, they were a nuisance to society on the outside and now we are making them a nuisance to society on the inside... well done whoever thought that trick up!

After a spat with Vodafone this week I am glad to say common sense prevailed. I was given some discount and my phone returned to its normal status, albeit in Craven Arms no 3G. But it does beg the question why you have to jump through so many hoops to get a response from such big companies, they are well financed and have more than enough capability to have service and call centres in most major parts of the UK but refuse. In the end I spoke to customer care and my upheld complaint was adjudged and dealt with very fairly, though I think Mike the manager may be heading for a future visit to charm school when they hear the tape of his telecon with me and rightly so.

So all it leaves me to do is say enjoy your bank holiday and don't get too upset at the queues, tomorrow is another day so enjoy the drive and look at the scenery if you are bored, unless you are driving and you need to keep your eye on the vehicle doing 3 mph in front of you :-)

Happy Bank Holiday!

Vodamoan....

Sometimes, even though you think you are doing the right thing and following all the guide lines and playing by the book you can still get caught out. Those words are very prophetic for me and I am in fact slightly embarrassed even that I fell into the oldest pitfall in the travel book and that is not ensuring your mobile charges were sorted before you use your mobile abroad.
The facts are that before departing for Australia in May i contacted my service provider of some twenty years (Vodafone) and told them exactly what i was doing and for how long, I told them explicitly that i didn't want to come back to huge bills and what could they do for me?.
As I own an iPhone 5 they did seem awfully preoccupied at the time with WiFi and I duly accepted a package that limited me to 25gb and then text-ed me when I had used it at a cost of £5.00.

So off i went for six weeks to the land of plenty and three weeks in I get a text from Vodafone to tell me my bill was now £850+vat and i needed to contact them to ensure I knew about it. Considering my normal bill is 2-300 pounds one would beg to question why the company let it go £150.00 over let alone five or six hundred pounds over and the bill was not high because of Wifi usage but calls, I was getting charged £1.50 per minute for accepting calls and making them to mobiles inside OZ, but there we go you make your own mind's up over that one.
With this news i headed for a Vodafone.au shop and told them of my plight, they recommended a simple Samsung pay as you go phone for $30.00 and away I went. They also said in the shop that my treatment by Vodafone UK was a little harsh considering I had previously rung them to inform them of my whereabouts but again, you make your own minds up.
On landing in Gatwick and arriving home some four hours later I rang Vodafone to ask if they could look at the bill again which was now standing at some £1,200.00. The reception I got was like hitting a brick wall at 70 mph in a bubble car while strapped to the roof rack, definitely a no-no, but as I was reminding them about the fact I HAD been responsible and rung them beforehand the guy on the phone proceeded to then inform me that i should have had my phone unlocked and used an Au. phone Sim, rather closing the stable door after the horse has bolted I thought. Anyway the accounts side of Vodafone rang me back some minutes later and we worked out a simple plan of paying the bill over 3 months which was not ideal as there was no offer of a discount or softening of the blow it was pay up and shut up, it has never been about the ability to pay but the principal. So I agreed to pay for the outstanding over sized bill over 3 months and off we went. Well, no. It doesn't work like that. This is Vodafone.

You see, this is where you need to read the small print on your phone contract, despite paying £40+vat every month plus phone calls and texts on my contract to this greedy bunch of business people and sticking to the agreement put in place I had my phone restricted today, so it only takes incoming calls. This is because even though I had (only 3 days ago) paid this monster of a company £601.50. which was made up of the £390.00 and £210.50 in monthly call charges and contract fees they now decided that they would take up their option under "terms and conditions" and restrict my phone to incoming calls only.

So, as I have said before, make your own minds up about what you are reading. I rang Vodafone to find out why they had done this and even the guy on the other end of the phone could not believe what had happened, he said he had been with the company six years and never seen a customer be treated in this way, so rather than moan at him I requested to speak to a manger as by now even my patience was wearing thin.
I ended up getting a manger who if you cut him through the middle it said "I Love Vodafone" excellent news for this behemoth of a company but curtains for me the humble customer looking to get some sort of conclusion, I swear that if you placed this guy in a capsule and sent him to Mars he would not be lonely as he would be happy arguing with himself all the way there and back.
Despite my protests that I had stuck to my agreement and I had done what they asked Vodafone still retain the right to stop service whenever they like, despite the agreement in place. So I ended up bidding the man good day as he was quite simply a robot with a script and put the phone down, I looked at my iPhone sitting there as a lifeless lump of plastic and went out and bought another £20.00 Samsung with a pay as you go Sim, oh and its an 02 sim as the reception in Shropshire is far superior to Vodafone in any case.

My protest and my little story will make no difference to @Vodafone as they are far too big a company to miss my 2-300 a month but the moral of my story is this, if I as a businessman who takes the time to sort such things out before I go abroad can get caught out then so can anyone, I am not wet behind the ears I thought I had taken all the steps necessary to ensure I didn't get a huge bill and in the end that is exactly what I got, so my advice is to get your phone unlocked and when you get in your Country of preference buy a local Sim card. That is the advice that Vodafone will not give you here because it's handing business to their competition, (their words not mine) so make of that what you will also, the fact I will never use them again and they have lost a good loyal customer will doubtless not lose their MD a seconds sleep, but if nothing else I hope my sobering tale of corporate greed at its most efficient will stop others being quite so foolish as I.