Text Speak in Daily Life

I'm a member of a few Internet based forums (all good, clean, decent ones before you ask!) and am becoming increasingly irritated by the number of members who can't be bothered - or don't know better - to use real English instead of text-message derived abbreviations.

Some of my 'favourites' would be;

• NE WAY - anyway

• SUM1 - someone

• CUZ - because

• PPL - people

• W8 - wait

• U - you

The first one is especially fantastic as it's exactly the same number of keystrokes as the word it's supposed to replace!

Even the National Railway Museum has resorted to this bastardisation of the English language in a bid to attract younger visitors. Their new poster uses the text message "Ifu think trAns R ZzZz thnk x2" (If you think trains are boring think again).

It's An Outrage!!

If you're texting on a mobile phone and the number of characters are limited, then fine. If you're being charged by the minute for online access, then fine. But when you're trying to contribute to a sensible, grown up debate or request help with something, and you're doing it from your home PC, there's no excuse.

I've also generally found that ppl (oops, sorry - people) who use these abbreviations are frugal with capitalisation and punctuation, have second-rate spelling ability and are not overly familiar with the most basic points of grammar. Oh yes, and by and large they're aged under 16.

Which makes me wonder not only what schools are teaching, but on what date in the not-too-distant future will the last intelligible conversation take place between those over 25 and those under?

I mean, WTF?? U can LOL M8, but I'm way :(

When Not To Clean Main Roads

Near where I live, there's a road I use every day to get to work, and it's a main road. It connects two of the main routes into Nottingham, and is therefore very busy.

It's also single lane either way, and has got houses on one side, with cars parked outside them. This makes it narrow at the best of times, especially when you throw in the buses that use it and have to stop frequently to let people on and off.

Now, although I'm not an expert on these things, I would suggest that one of the busiest times on this road (and most others) would be 07:00 - 08:00 on a Monday morning, when people are trying to get to work. Usually not in a good mood either, what with it being the first day back after the weeken and all that.

So when do you think would be possibly the worst time to send a road sweeping lorry up such a road at it's customary 3 miles per hour?

But when do you think the local City Council have chosen as their preffered time to do just that??

It's An Outrage!!

As if driving to work on a Monday morning isn't bad enough, try doing it with one of these lumbering beasts holding you up!!

A journey which should take three minutes tops from one end of this road to the other often takes up to 15!!!!!

What the hell's wrong with doing it at 10:00, or 20:00?? I'm all for clean streets, but not when it means I have to sit behind the lorry that's doing it, every week without fail.

Do Councillors have a care for their city's motorists, or do they just fail to notice the gridlock they're causing because they're too busy squandering my tax pounds on chauffeur driven taxis??

Eagle Star Screw Me For Car Insurance

Eagle Star Insurance used to insure both my car and my partner's car, right up until last month.

That's when they issued a renewal notice as it was due to run out, and whacked it up by 35% over the previous year - a huge £246!!

And all because I'd made my third claim within a five year period.

Ah well, I hear you say, you're a crap driver and therefore must pay the penalty. If only that were the case. The incidents were;

• Aug 1999 - I ran into the back of a truck on a roundabout (I didn't expect him to stop to let a car cross in front of him, but that was clearly my fault.)

• Nov 2000 - whilst pursuing a criminal, a marked police patrol car backed into the side of the car whilst I was stationary outside my house, with my lights on, and after I'd sounded the horn to let him know where I was. Pretty much NOT my fault!

• Jan 2001 - a greedy fox with a mouthful of pheasant ran out in front of me on a long, straight country road at midnight. Oops! Two dead animals for the price of one smashed bumper.

So, even taking into consideration that only 1 out of 3 of these was really anything to do with my bad driving, I was penalised. Apparently that's the rule - 3 incidents in 5 years and your premium leaps upwards.

It's An Outrage!!

There seems to be no flexibility or adaptability in the way insurance is calculated by Eagle Star.

Still, I did what every consumer should, and took my business to a competitor.

Bad Drivers & Bad Pedestrians

I'm surprised it's taken me this long to post an entry on this subject, given that I drive about 70 miles a day, but my feelings of outrage at these particular types of people have only just formed and clarified over the last few weeks.

I wouldn't be as arrogant or foolish enough to say "I'm a better driver than most everybody else", although I did pass my Advanced Driving test at the first attempt a few years ago. Then again, I've been driving 12 years and had 3 accidents, so maybe that balances things up?

Anyway, I see a lot of gimps on the road who clearly shouldn't be in charge of a teapot, never mind tonnes of steel and glass and highly combustible fuel.

My particular hates are as follows, in no particular order and with no particular reason either;

DRIVERS WHO;

• use front and/or rear fog lights in the rain/day/1000 yard visibility (they're called FOG lights for a fecking reason!)
  

• hog the middle lane on the motorway because there's a lorry in the inside lane 3 miles up ahead (the tarmac on the inside lane is just as good quality as the other two, and did you ever learn an overtaking maneuver?)
  
• and following from that, don't pull in from the middle of the lane when I want to overtake
  
• don't indicate on roundabouts
  
• don't indicate EVER
  
• in 10,000 space car parks have to get the first one they come across, even if it's less than two feet from the entrance and it means holding everyone else up whilst they back into it seven or eight times
  
• pull out in front of me from a side road with a screech of tyres, then drive ten miles an hour slower than me, only to turn left 10 yards down the road
  
• park badly, so the space next to/in front of/behind them is just too small for me to get in
  
• sit so close to the wheel they can't possibly steer properly
  
• could slow down slightly to let me turn across the flow of traffic, but just don't
  
• could slow down slightly to let me turn into the flow of traffic, but just don't

PEDESTRIANS WHO;

• try to cross the road within sight of a zebra crossing
  

• can't make their minds up whether they're going to cross or not, and bob on and off the kerb
  
• walk behind me in car parks, through the space I'm reversing into
  
• press the button on pelican crossings, then nip across the road, leaving the lights to turn red and hold up the traffic with no-one waiting to cross

So, basically what I'm saying is that everybody should get out of my way or better still stay at home and leave the roads to me. After all, I'm a better driver than the rest of you...

By the way - I'm driving the white Rover with the blood stains on it.

Ridiculous Compensation Claim III

In the run up to Christmas, I've got myself a Saturday job (as well as my main week job) back at one of the WHSmith stores I used to be a manager at.

It's in order to get some extra money for a few things I want to do next year, and it's kinda fun too.

However, we got a phonecall yesterday that I was privy to, from a woman who claimed we had discriminated against her daughter, humiliating her and 'crushing her already low self-esteem'.

And how had we done this? By refusing to sell her an age-restricted video because she didn't look old enough.

Admittedly, it was a 12 certificate, and the girl was actually 16, but if she didn't look old enough, we did the right thing. Trading Standards are very keen to make a fool of High Street stores by sending in underage children to buy things the law doesn't permit, so we are always very vigilant; I've done it myself innumerable times - we even have to keep a register of what we've refused, to whom and why!

Anyway, it seems this particular girl is very short and petite, and her mother claimed we were being 'heightist', or some such nonsense.

Now, I have every sympathy for the girl, as I have always looked much younger than I actually am (product of a stress-free life...!). Up until the age of about 25 I was still sometimes refused entry into clubs, or service at a bar. This year, at age 29, I was even refused service by a barman in Las Vegas, where the drinking age is 21. Half of me was flattered, but half of me was annoyed.

But at the end of the day, he was doing his job. I showed him my passport, and he served me.

The irate mother demanded an apology, which she got from the store manager (who also offered to apologise personally to the girl if she came back in), but this wasn't enough. She was 'looking for some sort of compensation, like a few free videos.'; what she got was a polite refusal and the Head Office address.

It's An Outrage!!

Once again, a lazy person seizing any opportunity to get something for nothing.
Would a few free videos stop it happening again? NO!
Would it be a good idea to carry around some sort of proof of age? YES!!

If she already has low-esteem over this, I suggest it isn't the first time it's happened. Wake up, see the pattern, take a bit of self-responsibility and stop being another blame-culture parasite.

She probably eats at Harry Ramsden's, where crap parent's perpetuate this attitude...

Want to know what the other Ridiculous Compensation Claims were?
Click here for I, and here for II

NTL's Shocking Customer Service

I'm a customer of NTL, taking cable TV, telephone and internet services from them.

They ran up the other day whilst I was out, spoke to my partner and asked if we'd like a second phone line installed for free.

As my partner doesn't pay the bill, but knows we'd use this service, she suggested they call back later when I was in.

The call never came, but two days later I did get a letter thanking me for choosing a second line, and giving the date when an engineer would be arriving to install it .

Somewhat annoyed by this, I called their customer services number, and was put on hold for 45 minutes, at which point I was cut off.

I tried again the next morning at 08:30, but again went into a queue for 30 minutes before I had to hang up and do some work.

I tried emailing the person who sent me the letter, but NTL's standard email format is firstname.lastname@ntl.com; unfortunately, the person who wrote to me had signed his name as S.Masters - so no help there then.

Now, I know someone who is connected in some way to NTL, and he suggests that far from this being a case of under-staffing or high demand for their services, the massive waiting times are in fact a deliberate attempt to reduce NTL's complaint rate statistics.

It's An Outrage!!

By allegedly not answering calls quickly, they hope most callers will give in and hang up, thereby not registering their complaints, thereby reducing NTL's complaint rate and workload.

This is also what they do for people wanting to cancel or reduce the number of TV channels they are subscribed to.

If this is true, it's an absolute crime. But of course, this is currently just hearsay; unless you know differently...

Crap Parents at Harry Ramsden's

So there I am last night, sitting outside at Harry Ramsden's (for those of you not in the know, this is possibly one of the finest fish and chip shops in the world, now with an outlet reasonably near you!) eating my fish supper (how I got there is a long story, involving broken ankles and wallpaper, and is perhaps for another time) and looking at the family at the next picnic-table over.

There's a mum and a dad and a girl aged about 13ish and a boy aged about 10ish, and I'm drawn to them for all the usual reasons. Like, dad's wearing sports gear and doesn't seem to be the type that can actually remember the last time he was out of breath; the mum is more than a little overweight and wearing shall we say inappropriately tight pedal pushers. The daughter is the same, only more overweight and wearing even tighter clothes, and the son looks pretty average considering.

Anyway, I'm getting off the point. Which is, that the kids were playing in the specially made play area with a slide, rocking horse type things on a spring, and a see-saw, when the boy comes limping back with a pouty lip and whining that he's got a splinter in his backside from the see-saw.

The dad offers to have a look, rolls down his shorts (out of the view of the other diners) and the kid starts balling his eyes out - and I mean like he was being murdered. He was screaming and jerking and wailing, and I seriously expected his leg to be hanging by a scrap of flesh judging by the noise he was making. In an attempt to placate him, his mother and sister were effectively pinning him to a bench and shouting at him to calm down; you can guess how effective that was...

After some five minutes (and the offending article presumably still lodged bone deep and close to an artery), they carry him into the main restaurant muttering things about "compensation". I could see that they were met by a man in a tie who, after being on the receiving end of some gesticulation, took them off into the depths of the building. I sat there for a good half-hour afterwards, and they hadn't emerged by the time I left, so maybe the surgeon ran into difficulties...

What outraged me were two things, the first being the ineptitude of the parents in dealing with the 'splinter' in the first place, i.e. lets get him screaming at the top of his voice from obvious discomfort, but continue to do it with no thought for his mental state.

Secondly though - and this is the biggie - is their attitude to something that 'in my day' would have been put down to 'just one of those things'. So he's managed to pick up a splinter from a wooden seesaw, and they automatically want to lay the responsibility at the door of somebody else? What kind of abdication of parental duty is that? Had the see-saw collapsed and broken his arm (or ankle, which would have been much more painful I bet...) then I could understand it, but a splinter? From a piece of wood? Get a grip!!!

We are hurtling down the liability highway to a nanny state dead end. Pretty soon everything that happens will be somebody else's fault, and they'll have to pay out for not stopping it. And where do you think this money will come from? Higher prices and less choice.

We are also creating a generation of people who can't accept that sometimes accidents happen and that there are such things as common sense and personal accountability. You've scalded your tongue on a hot pie? Hmm, perhaps you should have blown on it and tested the heat before shovelling it in. You're a fireman and want compensation because the sight of a burned body has upset you so much? What did you expect when you joined the fire brigade - that it'd all be kittens stuck up trees and ladies in bathtubs?

It's An Outrage!!

One of the reasons that Britain is so far 'behind' the US in terms of litigation is that up until recently all our Judges were old enough to have been through at least one world war and seen some real suffering. As such they were apt to treat with disdain many of the cases that came before them on the basis that the claimants needed to get a bit of a backbone, pull themselves together and get on with it.

Not so now, as a younger breed of judiciary come to the fore that have seen only the excesses of our trans-Atlantic cousins and think that this is the way to go.

It isn't. Very soon we will be wondering where all our kid's playgrounds went and why all the soup in restaurants is tepid, and why you just can't buy a beefburger from a street vendor anymore. And it'll all be the fault of that kid with the splinter in his arse...

Toothless Taxi Watchdog

In February, I had occasion to complain to the Chesterfield Borough Council about the driving and behaviour of one of their taxi driver's.

The blighter had dangerously cut up me and another car at a roundabout, and then given me obscene hand gestures for about a mile, encouraging his school-uniformed passenger to do the same. Call me old fashioned, but I wasn't very happy about that and given that his details were plastered all over his vehicle, thought I'd take the time and effort to do something about it.

So, I dropped all the details to the appropriate person at the Council, and got a swift reply saying that they'd written to the driver and would be following my complaint up.

However, it turns out that he never replied to them, and refused to discuss it when he collected his taxi licence renewal from the Council offices. As such, the council can take absolutely no action against him.

It's An Outrage!!

What a useless way to run a public service! This taxi driver was a danger to other road users, and abusive to members of the public; as such he should be subject to disciplinary action. If I ever find myself in trouble (non-payment of taxes, speeding, criminal damage, that sort of thing) then perhaps I'll try the 'ignore it and it'll go away' approach. In Chesterfield, it certainly seems to work.

By the way, the taxi in question was a black and white Ford Orion, registration F995 UBE, plate number 113. If you see him, give him a smack for me will you...

Credit Cards and Experian

I realise that finance institutions have to ascertain if they are taking a risk when borrowing money etc. But when they take notice of items which are recorded at the Credit Reference Agencies (who I call Big Brother) which happened 5 years ago is OUTRAGEOUS!

How can your financial position be the same as it was five years ago? Everyone makes mistakes and in most cases, there is no negotiation, its just "Oooh Experian say that you had some arrears in 1996 so you MUST be a bad payer!!!!". These financial institutions are letting another company dictate their business practice.

Why can't each case be taken on its own merits? After all, most of us have had financial problems at one time or another unless we were born with the proverbial silver spoon!!! But these companies just are so blinked in their attitude it makes me fume.

It's An Outrage!!

It's time in this country that people who have had problems in the past were not treated like 2nd class citizens; after all, we've all heard of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act! Just because you were late paying something in the past or had financial problems, does not mean you are a criminal!

Cats That Poop in my Garden

Garfield is funny. He talks, eats lasagne and beats up dogs, but never poops in anybody's garden. Therefore you have to assume that Jim Davies, his creator, doesn't think pooping in gardens isn't funny. It isn't - especially when it's my garden!!The woman who lives next door to me - let's call her Alison (after all, that's her actual name) has twelve cats. I'll run that past you again - she has twelve cats. Two 'Felix' cats, two tabbys, two greys, a big fat black and white one, a big fat ginger one (Garfield or Geri..?), a white one, and three black ones.

Now technically, on the whole, they're very nice cats (except one of the grey ones who has a scraggy ear and a white eye), but they all poop, and they all choose my garden to do it in. And now it stinks like a French cat's camp-site toilet, even on the breeziest day!!

It's An Outrage!!

I've tried everything to discourage them, like rattling a tin can of pebbles at them, throwing balls/stones/coins at them, spraying them with water ( my brother persuaded me to buy a Super-Soaker for this job, and it does the trick!!), even chucking the poop back into their own garden, but nothing really works. I don't want a pet of my own to keep them away, and I don't want to turn into 'deranged man sitting by the window with an air rifle all day every day', although it's getting pretty close to that.

I've resorted to trying to make my garden cat-entry proof, but with limited success so far. I think I ought to be able to shoot or poison them with no legal consequences. After all, they're just roaming around - a bit like vermin you could say...

Bullied Schoolgirl gets Bodyguard

Amie Salmon is a 13 year old schoolgirl from a local Comprehensive school in my area. She is quiet, small and slightly built. Because of this, she has been bullied repeatedly by the same gang of eight girls since the beginning of 1999. She has been punched and kicked and taunted on an almost daily basis, and her parents have even considered putting Amie on tranquillisers to ease her worries. Amie can and has identified the girls to her teachers, but the school's solution has been not to punish those responsible, but to segregate her from the rest of the school and assign her a permanent teacher bodyguard. This bodyguard is with her from the moment she arrives at school to the moment she leaves, including breaks, lunchtimes and visits to the toilet.

Amie no longer studies with her classmates, but in separate classrooms on her own (except for her bodyguard), and she is allowed to carry a mobile phone with her throughout the school day in case she ever feels in danger.

Understandably, her parents are outraged that no direct action has been taken against the bullies, even though the head teacher, Mr Moralee has provided these 'words of comfort';

"...suspending bullies would not make life easier for Amie and other victims of bullying in the long run...it is not corrective", and"It's always the victim that has got the support here."

He is also planning to improve the school's strategy on bullying by;

• placing envelopes in classrooms for pupils to anonymously report bullying incidents

• setting aside a special room for victims to use during breaks

• arranging an author day at the school to discuss the topic of bullies

It's An Outrage!!

This is a complete waste of taxpayer's money and staff's time, and is teaching the lesson that the only way to deal with persecution is to run away from it.

What should happen is that the bullies are identified and punished, then expelled. By not having the bullies in the school, it would quite clearly make Amie's life much easier. To say otherwise is ludicrous.

Mr Moralee should be ashamed of his approach to this problem and his treatment of the affected pupils. He is not supporting the victims at all, but is adding to their suffering.

Children don't want to draw attention to themselves by hiding in special rooms, or having to be chaperoned by teachers - they want to see the bullies punished and be able to enjoy their lives.