Category Archives: Crazy World

A Lament for the Past

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What is it with people and computers? Are we not capable of thinking for ourselves anymore?

A few days ago I went to collect some tickets from a place that I shan’t name for fear of offending the proprietors but let’s say it was the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee! In fairness it could have been anywhere in the world.

There were two people in front of me having their order processed, which basically meant picking up pre-ordered tickets. After an unbelievable 15 minutes wait I made my way to the desk and handed over my voucher containing all the pre-booked information, date, time, place, tickets required and their reference number. After 10 minutes of the guy staring at his computer screen, consulting with a colleague and asking me for further confirmation I eventually got what I wanted.

Why, why should this happen?  Surely, if a clerk places the company’s own reference number into the computer it should immediately come up with the relevant booking. It’s hard not to conclude that it was actually quicker to process orders in the old days, when orders and references were written down on index cards and then placed alphabetically in a box for easy reference. Nobody seemed to struggle then.

Another gripe. Why is it that bar staff no longer seem able to utilise basic mathematics? Not so long ago, a good bartender would add up the order in his or her head and take the money off the customer. I appreciate that computerised tills are useful since they do all the additions, print off receipts and help prevent employee theft and fraud but there are times when an elementary use of mental arithmetic or even remembering what something costs can be useful to the customer. Why is it that a bartender can’t even take the money for a single drink without first telling the customer, “I’ll be with you in a second” or “I’ll be right back with your check”?

Computers are all well and good and are no doubt necessary in this modern hi-tech world but it’s such a shame that the price is a loss of human initiative and imagination.

A Kind of Wisdom

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I saw a sandwich board on the pavement (sidewalk, this is America, sorry!) outside a Nashville bar earlier today. At the end of the invitation to step inside and enjoy their cold beer was the exhortation “You can’t lower heaven but come raise hell!”

I’d never heard the saying before and it may or not be original thought but it certainly brought a smile to my face.

It was early afternoon, I was working and so I walked past. Way back in the 1970s and 80s, working or not, it would have been difficult to ignore.

Maybe that’s what age and experience does for you! Good job really.

A Celebration

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It was my birthday yesterday. I was sixty. So what, you may say and I agree, so what? Why do we make such a fuss of birthdays, particularly as we advance well beyond childhood and adolescence?

Twenty one is a big one, of course, representing as it does the notional passage from youth to adulthood. Thirty is big too and I guess so too forty and fifty but beyond that? No, after your fifties end the overriding feeling is often one of relief because by that time we have lost plenty of friends and, in some cases family members who never made it that far.

Sixty is worthy of a celebration. Of course it is, but not to the same extent as the other so-called milestones. As many folk are fond of saying, age is nothing more than a number, you are as old as you feel and all the other age-related cliches.

Well, I feel great thank you very much and I just want to appreciate life for what it is. Like the vast majority of those of us who live in the UK and the western world I am very lucky. By and large we don’t have it too bad, we live in a democracy, we are able to keep what we earn to a large extent and we can generally walk in safety down the streets of our towns and cities without interference. That will do for me.

So my view on celebration? Every day is a celebration and for as long as we have health and happiness and the health, happiness and love of those who we in turn love, what could be worth a greater celebration than that?

Fifty Shades of Stupidity

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In the middle of a week dominated by politics an unusual story hit the news and almost slipped through the radar. It concerned a Frenchman who posted an advertvisement on a dating website inviting women to contact him for sex. To make his invitation more appealing he backed it up with a photograph of a 37 year old rugged-looking male model.

 

Evidently the ruse worked since two of his correspondents, on separate occasions, willingly allowed themselves to be blindfolded, a la Fifty Shades of Grey, in a dark room in his French Riviera apartment and then had sex with him. They were evidently horrified when the blindfold was removed to reveal not the 37 year old hunk that each had expected but a 68 year old bald overweight pensioner with wrinkly skin and a big nose.

 

Anyway, the aged Lothario has now been charged with “rape by surprise” even though he says the women gave their full consent and were perfectly willing at all times to engage in sexual activity; a fact they are not seeking to deny. The court will presumably have to answer the question as to whom the women thought they were giving that consent and then pass judgment accordingly.

 

Whether the old guy is regarded as a sexual predator or just a dirty old man who got lucky, the women involved can hardly expect universal sympathy. Willingly allowing themselves to be blindfolded by and then having sex with a man they had never even bothered to look at is hardly sensible behaviour. Clearly, when lust comes knocking at the door common sense jumps out the window. It should be an interesting court case.

 

 

Man’s Revenge

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Last week an American man was charged with doing what many of us have surely been tempted to do at one time or another. He became so angry with his malfunctioning computer that he took it outside the house and shot it eight times.

His local newspaper, the Colorado Springs Gazette, said that “He was able to wreak the kind of revenge most of us only dream about”. That is undoubtedly true, as anybody who has spent several hours working on their computer, only to lose all that work because the computer wouldn’t save it, will surely testify.

As with Basil Fawlty giving his errant motor car “a damn good thrashing” with a fallen tree branch all those years ago, we find it funny because we can identify with it. Breaking-down cars, computers failing to function correctly and mobile phones losing their signal in the middle of an important conversation are three of the banes of modern life so all credit to the guy from Colorado.

Incidentally, and perhaps unsurprisingly,  his computer is not expected to recover from its injuries.

Another Waste of Public Money

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Last  Friday, following the acquittal of four journalists brought to trial for allegedly paying public officials for information, the Director of Public Prosecutions,  Alison Saunders, announced that charges against nine other journalists for similar offences have now been dropped.

The charges were brought following Scotland Yard’s Operation Elveden which many critics referred to as a “witch-hunt” and an attempt by the Government to gag the free press. In other words, it was politically – and possibly even personally – motivated.

Journalists argued that under certain circumstances it is in the public interest to pay public officials for information and this was clearly the view of the jury last Friday.

What particularly grates is the fact that the operation cost the taxpayer an estimated £20 million, money that would have been better spent, for example, on counter terrorism or other serious crime.

Targets

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Everything seems to be  target driven these days and whilst this makes sense in the ultra-competitive world of business how can it be relevant in the public sector?  Targets are clearly important in sales where an employee is promised a financial bonus for selling a certain number of vacuum cleaners, fridges, cars or whatever. But, asking a teacher, a policeman or a doctor to reach a target seems pointless.

A teacher is either able to teach or not and the only imponderable (assuming the teacher is competent)  is  the ability or willingness of the pupil to learn. Similarly, the job of a policeman is to apprehend criminals and a good police officer  will arrest criminals as a matter of course, so why have a targeted number of arrests? Perhaps a town’s low number of arrests is due to effective policing which naturally leads to low crime rates. As for doctors, their job is to treat and heal the sick wherever they encounter them so why should a doctor need a target?

In the public sector the only “target” should be to do your job efficiently and effectively to the best of your ability and, provided the right people are in the right jobs, that should be enough.

The problem with the UK public sector seems to lie not with those on the front line (such as teachers, policemen and doctors) but with the hordes of administrators and pen-pushers who clog up the system  and cause unnecessary paperwork for those simply trying to do the job they are paid to do. How about targeting the removal of unnecessary bureaucrats?

Minority Rule

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It’s frightening to realise that a minority political party representing a fraction of the British electorate could effectively render the country defenceless. That is the nightmare scenario facing the UK at next month’s general election.

With two major political parties it used to be the case that the party with the majority would form the government and for the next  5 years would effectively rule the country according to its election manifesto. However, with an increase in the number of minority parties that is no longer the case, as the last 5 years of coalition government have clearly demonstrated.

In effect, the party supported by the largest proportion of the electorate will not be able to put their policies into practice. A clear indication of this was provided yesterday when the Scottish Nationalist Party (the SNP) announced that in spite of the fact that both major political parties, Labour and Conservative, wish to maintain the UK’s nuclear deterrent the SNP do not. If the SNP do form part of a future coalition government they have made it quite clear that they will end our nuclear capability.

Unfortunately for the majority of the UK electorate, who clearly do wish to maintain a nuclear deterrent (and imagine trying to hold off somebody like Vladimir Putin without one) the danger is that the SNP, with possibly 5 or 6% of parliamentary seats, could end up being king-maker and coalition partner to a weakened Labour party and thus achieve their aim.

So, not only do the SNP wish to lead Scotland to independence and break up the UK they also wish to emasculate us. If that doesn’t convince the undecided on how to vote on May 7th then nothing will.

The Post

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I have noticed, over the last couple of years or so, that the Post Office seem to be employing  far more female postmen than they used to. In fact, more often than not, my post is delivered by women and a very good job they do too. (And why not?- women are more than capable of doing a man’s job-don’t be so patronising-why should men get all the best work? etc. Ed).

The problem is, I’m a little confused as to how to correctly  refer to our female postal workers.  Clearly, it would be sexist and politically incorrect to refer to a female deliverer of the post as a postman. So what do I call her?  I’m so confused that I’d even consider seeking guidance from the PC Police on this point.

After further thought it becomes obvious, think of Chairman and Chair! Postman and Post! She is clearly a Post. There, that settles it.

If she does well at her job (and why wouldn’t she? – men have no monopoly on excellence etc . Ed.) she could well advance to become head of an executive  committee within the Post Office. In which case she would presumably be referred to as the Chair of the Post or maybe even the Chair Post! How silly we are.

Caught in a Trap

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Evidently, London’s Fire Services are bracing themselves for a dramatic rise in call outs from people unable to release themselves or their partners from handcuffs and other restraints following today’s UK release of the “mummy-porn” film “Fifty Shades of Grey”.

According to a fire service spokesman (person, sorry!) they regularly have call outs from all sorts of adventurers who come a cropper, so to speak. There is concern at the higher levels of the fire service that the  release of the film is only likely to make matters considerably worse.

Asked to provide examples, the spokesperson revealed that in the past couple of years fire crews have attended 28 incidents involving people trapped in handcuffs, removed 293 rings including 7 from male genitalia and released men’s genitals from vacuum cleaners or toasters

Now, I’d like to think that I’ve got a fairly broad mind and am reasonably enlightened so that  I can just about understand the warped rationale behind messing around with a vacuum cleaner (though presumably not a Dyson!). However, on the basis that the action is voluntary, I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend the thrill or pleasure in inserting one’s genitalia into a toaster. Or is that just me?