Overkill/play...

I like my music, & I must emphasis MY music-for reasons which will become plain later, I like blues, a bit of rock & classical. I like to listen to CD's, records & the radio. In fact I leave the radio on each time I go out as I don't like the feeling of returning to an empty house when Kate et are at work etc

But lately I've found that it appears as though everywhere there is music playing. Its overkill. You have to hold on a telephone line to be connected & you hear some God awful jingle that drives me to the brink of insanity.
You pas a car on the High Street, its windows wide open and the driver has his music blaring out at unrecognisable decibels. Why these drivers believe that you may wish to hear there often mindless boom-boom din is beyond me. You go into any supermarket & they have what appears to be their own radio station playing often accompanied by some subliminal advertisement to buy a product that the store is currently selling Grrr...!!
You get in a life/elevator &... they have music playing. You sit on the bus and ten to one the guy next to you has a headset on &...yes...you can hear his bloody music. I don't wanna hear it!!
 I could go on & on...
Where does this belief that everyone wishes to hear music publicly come from? I've noticed it creeping into our daily life more & more each year.
What's wrong with a bit of quiet when were out?
For God's sake don't kill music by overplaying it.

fears Leave

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Why the hell do they want to know all this stuff???

What the hell is going on in this country at the moment??  We wanted to take out a small insurance policy that pays out maybe £10K should one or the other of us die. We naively thought that we'd be able to pay out a fixed sum monthly in order to facilitate this.
 Simple...you would think. Oh no....
We went to see the insurance fellow at our bank Santander, I was asked for photo id, and for a detailed breakdown of our financial incomings & outgoings each month!
I don't believe that its neither his, nor Santander's damn business how much money we have coming into Woolley Grange each month nor what we spend our money on.  Is this a 'Big Brother'state or what people? He can just shut the fuck up! Incidentely, I did not supply him with the information &, after telling him politely  why I would not be supplying the required information, I bade him "good day" & left. he, sat there during this diatribe nodding in an empathetic manner whilst smiling at me in a patronising way
Git.

Dingle.

The local elections-a protest?

Look what I've just discovered I've got....!

The day after the local election results in the UK we see that the 'far from honest' UKIP  which is essentially a covert cover for a right wing Fascist political party has gained a number of seat at the expense of the mainstream parties.
However I am of the opinion that the success of UKIP is based upon sensationalist, racist gutteral polices. The leader of the party, Nigel Farage speaks the language of the rabble rouse, the polices tof the side streets. language & beliefs that appeal to the more reactionary of the electorate.
seeing Mr Farage grinning, smug face, beaming from ear to ear looking like a dog whos' discovered that he has 3 pairs of bollocks made my teeth itch.
Sadly, I have to say that Ed Milliband (the leader of the UK Labour Socialist Party) hasn't quite got the charisma or fire in his belly to lead the Socialist cause into the General election of 2015.

Ranting...

Following pressure from my off springs to "come into the 21st century dad" I have enrolled on Facebook. (for better of for worse!) Therefore I now have another avenue to pour forth my rants! This may or may not limit the number of rants that I pour forth on this site-time will tell. If you, dear reader wish to 'add'me to see what the hell I may be ranting about, please feel free to go on to the Facebook thingy.

Coffee n Birmingham UK

Here's something that really pisses me off.
Kings Heath has an abundance of decent coffee bars (excluding Costa). Each one of them charge approx £1.85-£1.90 for a watery cup of coffee. You're expected to queue up for you coffee, (& sometimes take it to your table) sit at a dirty, uncleared table & then the staff have the temerity to have a container on the counter for tips!! What service have they provided to warrant a tip?! Why can't we be like they are on the Continent? Staff take your order & bring you your coffee etc..
A cup of coffee out should be a period of time to relax & savor the moment. The whole experience here is unpleasant. They won't get a tip from me I tell you that much! (apart from advice not to eat yellow snow)

That chair....

You will recall perhaps that the other day I gave vent to my spleen over the delay in me taking delivery of my £660 chair from Cousins. I reckoned that the chair was now in the possession of some Somali warlord.
Well now people, I am happy to say that I took a phone call this evening from a charming lady at Cousins furniture store telling me that the aforementioned chair will arrive on next Tuesday. When on Tuesday she wasn't able to tell me, rather she asked for me to stay in all day as its down for an "all day delivery". WTF?
I know one shouldn't look a gift horse/chair in the  mouth & all that, but do they really expect a person to hang around the house ALL DAY while they swan around the environs of Birmingham before they eventually decide ...."Oh we're near enough to Kings Heath, lets drop that miserable bastard Woolley's chair off..?"  No problem guys...I spend the day doing a bit of light dusting, grooming Charlie Coal the cat, I'll mop the kitchen, & maybe arrange all my CD's into generic classification.
I am secretly grateful though.
 I 'm grateful  to the Somalian Warlord, who took the time to order his lads to take my chair to Mogadishu docks & reload it on the next ferry bound for the UK . Fair play.

But seriously. The moral of this story is twofold.
1: Complaining & not 'standing for the 3 card trick' (as my deceased Irish Grandfather used to say that Englishmen usually did/do)
2: Heed my advise...don't shop at Cousins...I won't again. The gobshites.

The lads in Mogadishu taking my chair to the container ship give a cheery wave!

How much?????

It pays to be on the ball you know.....to keep a tag on your expenditure especially when you go out shopping at the local supermarket.
At least in down-town Wolverhampton England.

The story goes that a guy went into his local Asda supermarket, did his weekly grocery shop & paid for it with his bank debit card. No problem then.
The following month however he received his bank statement thru the post & noticed that on that shop he'd been charged £450 for one thick sliced wholemeal loaf of bread!!
Fortunately he was successful in obtaining a refund...but he'd eaten the loaf!

Two rants....God I'm angry!!!

Ok here goes.... On January 8th 2014 I splashed out in a moment of sinful extravagance £660 for a lovely leather chair. Our motivation being that it would be a lovely chair to sit & read, listen to our music & relax by the blazing open fie. 1 chair. Not a 3 piece suite or some fancy space age chair that's powered by electric motors that do everything from making you a nice cup of tea, to bringing you to a height of sexual pleasure.
So have I enjoyed the aforementioned chair?? Have I bollocks!
I have to wait 5 months for the chair to arrive from somewhere over an ocean.
Never having been one to put up with shoddy service especially when I've paid money & not received the goods, I emailed the shop, only to receive a shit for brains reply saying that they were unable to help. So my money is with Cousins furniture store gaining interest instead of being in my pocket.
Grrr......!!
I see it all now though... My chair has been made in China (where it seems bloody everything is made these days) &, en route to the UK the ship was hijacked by Somalian pirates.
I reckon that my chair now is the prized possession of a Somalian warlord who is lounging on it like jack the bleeding lad, with his Kalashnikov resting jauntily across his lap, whilst he chews a mouthful of khat.
The morale of this sorry tale???
1: Don't spend a fortune on a bloody chair. & 2: Do not by ant furniture from Cousins Furniture Store cos they don't give a flying feck about their customers as long as they take your money.

And for my next rant people:  Passwords.  Yes Password. Everyone & everything has a bloody array of password & PIN  numbers to remember. Password for your online bank, your email account, to access your bills online, your work emails, your work computer system(s), the bloody list goes on & bloody on.
Stop for a while & just count exactly how many you have to remember... & it doesn't end there....alot of sites insist that you change them every month or so.
It does my head in. As I advance in years I find that I'm unable to quickly recall all my passwords. Oh & then you're asked the answer to a security question that you may have answered about 3 years ago. WTF!!!
Give us a break you bastards!!!

Russia/Crimea-the lessons of history??

In a rigged undemocratic referendum in a Ukrainian province  Russia quietly annexed Crimea. President Putin of Russia asserts that the majority of the population are ethnic Russians & voted to return to the mother land of Russia-the same motherland that 'gave' Crimea to Ukraine following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Of course the area is of important strategic importance to Russia as they base their Black Sea fleet there & the West have an interest too as that area as it borders the Aegean & Mediterranean Seas.
Now though Putin has walked in to the Crimea & the West has mealy waved some pieces of paper at Russia. Not at Putin No, but at the population of Russia. Men, women & children-Putin won't be affected by the sanctions proposed by Obama, Cameron et al.
Heard it all before??
Google Austria March 1938-' Anschluss'-Herr Hitler 'connected' with the German peoples of that country-sounds similar? Again Google the Munich Crisis September 1938- the same Herr Hitler annexed (rather was given) by the West the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia-with a 'piece of paper'. Weeks later he marched into the whole of Czechoslovakia.
It is said that he who does not heed the lessons of history is destined to repeat them. How long will it be before the whole of Ukraine will cease to exist in its present form.
I realise that the West is limited in its responses to Russian expansionism, & I'm not sure what we can do to respond to their action(s). But I think that waving bits of paper that will only affect the populace of Russia is neither right nor proper. Surely a more dynamic response directed at Russian diplomats would be more appropriate?

Putin & the Ukraine.

Russian leader Putin is a despot. He's mad-you only have to look at the man He was visible upset & angry  at the Russian ice hockey team losing to Sweden in the recent winter Olympic he probably had the entire team either shot or sent to a bloody gulag!
Now he's sent his troops into Ukraine thereby bringing about the most dangerous crisis in Europe since his countries invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Putin's action today appears to me to have close similarities to the invasion of 1968 when the then Soviet Union acted aggressively to enforce its despotic Communist control over eastern Europe. Putin, despite being 'democratically elected' (sic), is an ex KGB operative who openly ignores human rights & is clearly ready & willing to stamp out any dissension to anything that he feels is a challenge to his rule.
Russian intervention into Ukraine has been justified by him with him saying that he is "protecting the rights & safety of ethnic Russian peoples living in Ukraine...."
Now where have I heard this before?? I remember....Didn't another psychopathic despot justify his invasions of Czechoslovakia & Poland by saying the same thing some 70 odd years ago??
Come off it Putin.... We know your game.
But I guess like in 1938 the West will do bugger all except verbally condemn Putin's action's & let him swamp & swallow up Ukraine & Herr Hitler did.

This is totally wrong!!!

I heard yesterday that Wayne Rooney the Manchester football player has signed a new contract. This contract is worth a reported £300.000 per week. Yes people, you read that correctly......£300,000 PER WEEK!
How can this be justified? Moreover how does this man square this immoral payslip with his soul?
I have nothing but contempt for this sort of thing nor have I any respect for Wayne Rooney in accepting this amount.
Though I have followed Aston Villa F.C. since I was a small lad there is no way under God's heaven that I would go & watch any football game that condones this sort of wage payout to its players. I know that though there are no players at Aston Villa who earn anywhere near Rooney's wage there are 1 or 2 whose salary is near £3000 per week.
Disgusting.
Rooney, you are a prat. (A rich prat, but a prat nevertheless)

RIP.

Today saw the death of a great man in so many respects, a prophet, a gentleman, visionary & a terrific musician/songwriter.....
.....Pete Seeger.
The world is a sadder place this evening.

"Turn around...."

Does EVERYONE. love sport??

Just a short rant this evening folks.Hey, it's my first rant on line in 2014!!
Anyhow.I know England got wiped off the field in every cricket test match they played against the Aussies, but do we have to have sport rammed down each & every one of our senses??
The television advertisements for example this evening were pushing the big sell for broadband providers.BY are apparently offering broadband for £5 odd per month for 6 months increasing to between £10-20 thereafter.
This is all very well I'm sure,quite reasonable I guess. B But then they add quite assertivly that it comes with FREE sports Christmas channel coverage. WOW!!
That's sealed the deal then! It's a must have.....not. Why is there this apparent assumption that everyone is into sport?? The assumption appears to be that everyone must either watch, take part in, or be deeply fanatical about sport of some kind.
However for me I have about as much interest in sport as I have in reading the Daily Mail.
I'm sick of the insinuation that because of my lack of interest in sport my life is incomplete.
Sod sport.It does my head in, give me my books & music all & every time.