Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please

The following are apparently announcements made by London Tube train drivers to their passengers, who knows if they are genuine but they are certainly very funny.
For anyone who actually made one of these announcements, as someone who works with the public.......you have my greatest respect! I make tannoy announcements all day every day at work......oh to have the courage just once! :o)

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I do apologise for the
delay to your service. I know you're all dying to get home, unless, of course, you happen to be married to my ex-wife, in which case you'll want to cross over to the
Westbound and go in the opposite direction".

"Your delay this evening is caused by the line controller suffering from E &B syndrome, not knowing his elbow from his backside. I'll let you know any
further information as soon as I'm given any."

"Do you want the good news first or the bad news?
The good news is that last Friday was my birthday and I hit the town and had
a great time. The bad news is that there is a points failure somewhere between Stratford and East Ham, which means we probably won't reach our destination."

"Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay, but there is a security alert at Victoria station and we are therefore stuck here for the foreseeable future, so let's take our minds off it and pass some time together. All together now....”’
‘Ten green bottles, hanging on a wall.....'

"We are now travelling through Baker Street, as you can see Baker Street is closed. It would have been nice if they had actually told me, so I could tell you earlier, but no, they don't think about things like that".

"Beggars are operating on this train, please do NOT encourage these professional beggars, if you have any spare change, please give it to a registered charity, failing that, give it to me."

During an extremely hot rush hour on the Central Line, the driver announced in a West Indian drawl:
"step right this way for the sauna, ladies and gentleman... unfortunately towels are not provided".

"Let the passengers off the train FIRST!" (Pause...) "Oh go on then, stuff yourselves in like sardines, see if I care - I'm going home...."

"Please allow the doors to close.Try not to confuse this with 'Please hold the doors open'. The two are distinct and separate instructions."

"Please note that the beeping noise coming from the doors means that the doors are about to close. It does not mean throw yourself or your bags into the doors."

"We can't move off because some idiot has their
f***ing hand stuck in the door"

"To the gentleman wearing the long grey coat
trying to get on the second carriage - what part of 'stand clear of the
doors' don't you understand?"

Please move all baggage away from the doors (Pause..) Please move
ALL belongings away from the doors (Pause...) This is a personal message to the man in the brown suit wearing glasses at the rear of the train – put the pie down, four-eyes, and move your bloody golf clubs away from the door before I come down there and shove them up your a**e sideways"

"May I remind all passengers that there is strictly no smoking allowed on any part of the Underground. However, if you are smoking a joint, it's only fair that you pass it round the rest of the carriage".

Thanks to Retroguy for landing this in my inbox.

'Queen of the sky' is suspended!

An airline flight attendant, Ellen Simonetti, has been suspended from her job for blogging! The following is a comment I left on her blog, The diary of a (grounded) flight attendant, this morning:

I came here having read about your 'problem' on the BBC news, lol, your hit counter should be impressive for a few days! :o)

On a serious note: I have experienced a little of what is happening to you though thankfully my employer was more understanding. I am appalled at your situation, you do not need me to reiterate that your blog is your private business and given that you don't name your employer etc. I don't see where their problem is. Being an employee should not limit one's freedom of speech and your employer’s reaction only serves to make me for one wonder what it is that they are concerned about you divulging. It smacks of corporate paranoia.

You and I differ here in one aspect, had my employer asked me to take my blog down I, on principle would not have done, whatever the consequences.

Good luck in whatever you wish to be the outcome of your situation and my apologies for my rant here but I am incensed by this!

The BBC reported this story this morning and it is not often I am so angered by anything so early in the day. Perhaps on the scale of world events this incident is not earth shattering but it's implication are for me, extremely concerning.

Ms Simonetti did not identify her employer or her colleagues and created fictitional names for her characters but even had she not done so, do we not have a right to free speech and to pursue, within the law, interests in our free time of our choosing without the corporate machine bearing down on us.

As an employee I do not consider my self to be in any way the property of my employer, yes when I am in my place of work I have a code of conduct to adhere to and even outside of the workplace I accept that to a point I should not bring that employer's name into disrepute but (and this in my opinion is a big but), should that employer behave in what I believe as an unacceptable manner should I not also have the right to discuss it in a public forum in a reasonable manner.

Reactionary behaviour such as that displayed here by Ms Simonetti's employer only serves in my view to give me cause to question exactly what it is about her employers corporate behaviour that the company are worried we will discover!

Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that in a small way I have previously feared my own employers reaction to my blog, luckily the company who employ me are more reasonable and understanding but had they not been I would have been prepared to lose my job for the sake of what I see as a fundamentally important principle.

Ms Simonetti has not bought her employers name into disrepute and nor has her blog, the company themselves have done that by behaving in such an outrageous manner and have along the way, just lost at least one prospective customer through their own ignorance and display of corporate bullying.

I urge you to show your support for this lady and I wish her every success.

Diary of a (grounded) flight attendant can be found here.

And then there was the moon

.....and along with it came the sudden, stark realisation that it had been a bad idea to sell the SLR, tripod, lenses and associated paraphernalia because it just doesn't matter how much you like your cybershot there are times when it just ain't gonna be up to the job!!!


Full moon

Oh and yes.....we still have overhead phone lines out here.

The sun fell out of the sky.......

....in just 6 minutes this evening!

(click to enlarge)


Scottish Borders 17.20 BST ~ going........


17.22 BST ~ going.....


17.24 BST ~ going......


17.26 BST ~ gone!

Hurrah....Winter is here!

Frosty start

Brrrrr.....winter arrived overnight in this part of Scotland, leaving no shadow of doubt that summer is long gone. Temperatures fell low enough to form the first frost of the season and the landscape has the familiar stark hue about it.

I of course enjoy the summer but in common with Yorkshire Snowman I have a passion for the winter. Weather watching is something I do avidly throughout the season, not merely the normal British obsession with bemoaning the rain and winds etc. that we here in the UK are so infamous for. I have an assortment of electronic gadgetry here measuring various aspects of the meteorological goings on and websites galore that I ponder with much interest in a somewhat obsessive fashion!

Ok...so computers? now weather? I hear you say..........no one mention anoraks please!

My particular passion is for snow and lots of it, though extremes of any winter weather will do. There is nothing like it to lift my mood and put a smile on my face, odd I know when most detest the stuff but hey....did I ever say I was not odd?!

Having lived in the South of the country for most of my life, moving to Scotland seemed a big plus from the snow point of view. I moved here in March of 2001 and just missed the most significant snowfall for years by six weeks.

Six foot of snow fell overnight, it goes without saying that disruption was severe and the locality was completely cut off for a number of days. PG was stuck at work for the majority of the time, only escaping latterly, there was no power or phone lines for over a week but damn, it was beautiful! Of course, the possibility of no power does not fill me with complete happiness but each year we prepare with a calor heater and camping stoves etc. Maintaining an internet connection without power or phone lines is somewhat more of a challenge though and the one aspect that could almost put me off...........no.........it would be worth it!!

Thus far my winters in Scotland have been bereft of impressive snowfall, last year we had a few days and one white-out but not the stuff of a snow lovers dreams, so here's hoping for this year.

Apologies in advance, for it is highly likely I will bore you further on this subject over the coming months!

Are we comfortable??

Ditto 26.10.04

Ditto, tender of years and still with a few of the cat fact of life to learn, has in the last few weeks discovered there is more to beds than on, there is in fact something else, called in! This, as anyone who keeps cats will know, is perhaps not the most endearing of cat tricks!

Never has she yet considered we may not wish to have her attempting to burrow through from the outside at stupid o'clock, without fail futile scratching and burrowing precedes her eventual realisation that this just isn't going to work and that another approach must be used.

The secondary approach is the 'entry from pillow' approach, where invariably one or other of us receives a rude awakening courtesy of a small paw in the face! Having found a route in and made her way foot-ward, should we be silly enough to move a muscle we become 'prey', if we are not fully awake at this stage we soon will be, as small teeth and sharp claws 'play' at catch the foot!

Any attempts at removing said cat from the area is met with a more determined effort on her part at 'foot catching' and is pointless, not to mention painful.

So on it goes, we lie there cursing her quietly, trying to ignore her antics until eventually she decides she has found an appropriate spot, why she has to go through this each time is beyond us, she always ends up in exactly the same place where she remains firmly put againt any and every effort at removal!!

Shut the door I hear you say, keep her out of the bedroom......no chance, any efforts in that direction have been met with constant caterwauls and scratching, we have persevered I promise you, we have tried ignoring her for hours on end but her resolve is stronger than ours.....she will carry on for just as long as it takes to drive us demented enough to let her in.

Dontcha just love em sometimes! :o/

Neighbours from hell

An item in the news yesterday caught my eye, it concerned measures being put in place to protect the identities of those complaining about nuisance neighbours in the hope that more would be prepared to give evidence and therefore enable more prosecutions to go ahead.

Whilst I am all in favour of anything that assists in the prevention of such anti social and inconsiderate behaviour I doubt this goes far enough. In my experience to be shielded in court from the perpetrator goes nowhere near far enough in solving the problems of fear and intimidation encountered by victims of this crime.

When I first met my ex husband, approximately 10 years, ago he had recently purchased a small flat 'on the wrong side of town'. At the time property prices in the South East had risen dramatically, affordable rented housing was non existent and so it was for him that or nothing.

On the face of it the property was pleasant, a one bed flat built over a garage to house his many motorbikes and in an area that despite it's reputation locally, in comparison to many places looked civil enough. It's reputation was to prove valid.

We lived there for three years and it soon became apparent that all that is bad about a neighbourhood was there. The majority of residents where unemployed drug users, extremely young single mothers and with a smattering of shall we say 'ladies of the night'. Nice place....not!

Our most severe problem stemmed from our next door neighbour, a guy at the time in his early thirties, a heroin user and dealer who persistently played drum and bass at an unimaginable decibel level almost 24/7.

As is my way I first attempted to deal with this but asking politely if he would mind turning it down and appealing to his better nature, he didn't have a better nature as it turned out.I tried reasoning with him, befriending him and helping him but all to no avail. Occasionally if I could catch him not 'out of his face' he would appear reasonable but within an hour the music was back. Added to this we had to tolerate a constant stream of his unsavoury 'customers' along our access balcony and intermittent fights.

Our persistence with 'reasonable requests' continued but the situation deteriorated when our requests began being met with various large knives wielded at us each time we approached him. On each occasion that we reported the incident to the police, the perpetrator had reported that we had threatened him with a weapon and in the absence of witnesses (the majority of those who ever saw all this were his customers and would never of course witness against him) the police could do nothing!

Why, you are wondering did we not get environmental health to deal properly with the noise pollution aspect of this situation. Well here is the crux for me of the problem. We of course wanted out of this property and had been advised by a lawyer that should we choose to make our situation 'official' by reporting it to authorities other than the police, when we came to sell we would be legally bound to tell any prospective purchaser of the difficulties!!!! Catch 22.

I agree in principle with this point but at the time our desperation to escape overrode our concern for anyone buying the property, something that sat badly with my conscience but in my now state of near nervous collapse having dealt with this on a daily basis for 18 months I felt I had no other option. Our lawyer advised that providing the situation was not reported to environmental health and providing we mentioned to any purchaser that we had had some noise nuisance then legally that was all we were obligated to do.

I am not one easily scared or intimidated and neither was my husband but as time went on the situation became intolerable. We couldn't sleep or hear our television or our own music, items in our flat moved and fell off surfaces with the vibration and we constantly battled each other on the question of how best to deal with the situation. My husband by this time would happily have 'taken matters into his own hands' but I, being well aware that I had to live there and be alone there when he worked night shifts was becoming increasingly intimidated by threats to 'torch' our property at night etc. Each time we ventured outside our front door we suffered abuse, when we returned home fearing what we would find, we were threatened, shouted at and pushed around and through all this I still persuaded my husband not to retaliate. Still the police could do nothing and still each time we called them it would only make the situation worse!

I am not naive, I am well aware what was going on here. The last summer we spent there, one sunny afternoon when I was off work ill a loud bang alerted me and being concerned that Mr delightful next door was attempting yet again to break into our garage I rushed onto the access balcony to be met by 8 police officers, some armed, all in the 'boots and baseball cap' version of the uniform. One shouted at me 'YOU IN'....damn, I can do in I thought, I don't need telling twice in the face of firearms and other hardware and so I sat inside while they broke in and raided the place. I was relieved as I watched them remove bag after bag of evidence including 'unidentified substances', surely now this nightmare would be over. The guy had not been in at the time of the raid but I was confident he would be picked up and that would be that.

No........it was not to be, he was arrested but he was released again without charge, returned home and immediately blamed us for his bring raided! The situation again deteriorated, he became more volatile, began cutting our phone line, always greeted us with a blade of one description or another and still the drum and base continued 24/7! Despite our protestations each time we involved the police one or other would turn up at our door, making it obvious it was us making the complaint and still they could never raise a witness and our neighbour made one counter claim after another.

Enough was enough, my husband's patience after 2 years of this had been tested beyond all reasonable limits and late one summers evening as he was threatened again as he went to get something from the garage, he snapped and beat the living daylights out of him. I detest violence but for once, whilst I still didn't agree with it I could understand it. Interestingly despite many of his friends being there at the time, no one helped him and no one would again assist the police even in his defence! From that point on all these no-hopers who had blighted our lives began showing us a strange kind of respect, greeted us with nods and muttered 'hello's and even engaged us in conversation now and again!

I have never and would never advocate violence as a solution to any problem but it is a sad indictment of our system that in the end it was the only way out for us. I had had enough by then though and despite the guy in question no longer threatening us etc. He still played his music 24/7.

We put the flat on the market and sold at a big loss we could ill afford and with great difficulty. We had attempted to keep from him that the property was up for sale but he discovered and each time someone came to view he would 'kick off'. Eventually we found a buyer and got the hell out. To the very last he was a nightmare. On the day we moved out and she moved in as I drove away he returned home and began shouting obscenities at me. We had, as our lawyer instructed, given this lady minimal information about the problem and my concience struggled with it for months.

And so.........whilst I am glad of any legislation to help the victims of this type of behaviour, there needs to be far more done in extreme cases than protecting the identity of witnesses once the perpetrator is in court. I was unable to protect my identity from the outset and getting into court in the first place was seemingly impossible!!!

As a footnote, the lady in question it appears had two rather large sons who wasted no time in taking the situation into their own hands, violence seeming to be the only language understood by some. And what became of the neighbour from hell? He was jailed for arson a year later, beyond that I have no idea.

Un-confuse me

One of my favorite new blogs is 'QuickQuack' who's author, Jack the blogger, has the kind of wit that has me giggling out loud each time I read......that was until today!!

Today he left me in utter confusion, damn him, more proof I'm getting old methinks!

Would anyone care to go read this post and translate it for me, Greek seems a possiblitly, thus far I remian almost completely confounded, he had me lost beyond the words 'rap music'!

Today

Today I have done nothing.....well nothing of note. Having worked the last four days I got out of bed this morning ready to 'play', only to find some noxious little bug is endeavoring to invade my body. How inconsiderate, my day off, could it not have waited until a work day? I have something akin to a tennis ball in one side of my throat and razor blades in the other happily doing their worst along with some little guy with a darn big hammer in my head! My nose has recently joined in the party and is doing something I will not mention in detail for fear of putting you off your breakfast, lunch, dinner, depending on where you are reading this from!

As is evident I spent a little time tampering with my template again, I promise, no more changes....well not this week at any rate, I chatted with a friend for a while, did the domestic goddess stuff, made some bread (don't be impressed I have a machine) which I'm sure would smell delightful if only I had a sense of smell right now and then wasted my afternoon in bed asleep, or at least trying to be asleep while Ditto attempted the fandango around and under the duvet! Now I am up she is sound asleep at the foot of the bed!

I had a plethora of things to blog about this morning but they seem to have deserted me, not one can I drag from my infected little head right now. I'm feeling grumpy and churlish and pathetic...... I hate being poorly....... does it show?

I like this.....

I'm not sure it works very well on here but you get the idea! It's kinda everything that I love all in one little gif.......cats, birds, peace, black, white....blah blah blah! :o)

What a sight!

Coming into land

I read recently about an increasing problem with birds flying into windows and dying as a result, so much so that the problem has recently been addressed by such organisations as the RSPB, with the introduction of 'scarers' that are that are available to buy and attached to the inside of offending windows!!

Last night I had a kind of 'non event' experience in this vein, although thankfully not a catastrophic one. PG and I were watching tv, we live in a first floor flat and have windows the size and shape of the average door, at night we never close the blinds, there are no properties overlooking us so there is no need.

Late in the evening a movement at the window caught my eye, and against the black night sky I turned to see a barn owl flying directly at me....these things are big, it was over in a few seconds but for those seconds I held my breath, there was nothing I could do and no time to do anything in, save for move quickly in an attempt to scare it. It worked, or the bird suddenly saw sense and at the very last moment veered almost completely vertically and flew over the building!

What an amazing sight, this massive, beautiful white bird, flying directly at us, wings outstretched and in stark relief against the blackness of the sky. Over in a few seconds but in my minds eye forever.

You know what they say......

......about pride coming before a fall, well I have just experienced that fall!

I was about to blog about how many results the word 'gemmak' returns when it is 'googled'. I have never truly understood the business of spiders picking up one's site, in fact I have never understood it at all to be honest but when I first started this website/blogging malarky I googled myself and of course there were only 7 results....... all for an engineering company. A few weeks later I repeated the exercise and found me, I was most pleased, ok so 15 results is not impressive but at least I felt I existed!! Last night I googled me again and in no time at all was presented with 2270 results, I smiled quietly to myself. Ok, again not anything on the scale of let's say 'Marks and Spencer' but for me a marked improvement.

And then came the fall!

There can be few bloggers who can honestly say, hand on heart, that they don't watch their hit counter rise with some interest and over the months mine has climbed slowly but steadily. It is never gonna be 'beFrank',with over 40000 hits since May, if I make 100 hits a day I'm happy and of late I have had a number of 'happy days' with only a few occasions dropping below 75-ish.

So my fall??? Today, upon checking my hits, I found just 22, yes I said 22 as in just twenty two .............disgraceful! lol. I know I didn't have time to post this morning before work but the vast majority, in fact all but maybe 3 web users where not aware of that small point.

Is there something wonderful and weekendy going on somewhere that I have missed or has life just decided to kick my ass because I was feeling slightly pleased with the results of my Googling?? :o)

This is just not good enough!

I am feeling decidedly old and decrepit this morning and rather disgruntled with life and myself in general!

Having completed two of my four days at work I am already dead on my feet despite dragging my self off here and into bed at a half reasonable hour......and I still have two days to go, with today's shift not finishing until 9pm. I admire individuals who can work shifts comfortably, even a 9pm finish messes with my internal clock! once I get home somehow despite being tired for the best part of the day I just can't sleep unless I have a few hours relaxing first which inevitably leads to yet another late night.

So why the general state of malaise. Something flu like seems to be endeavoring to invade my being, I slept badly last night, I dreamt profusely, was hot and bothered and apparently was snoring!!!! Who me??? I think not!! This 'pleasant' revelation caused PG to prod me in the ribs, so to speak, on a number of occasions in an apparently vain attempt to get some sleep himself and thus causing my night to be even further disturbed. Wouldn't you think that a caring partner would look lovingly at a snoring partner and not prod? Ok maybe an unrealistic thought there!

Prior to my night of nocturnal mutterings two other rather aggravating events took place. Firstly I weighed myself. As someone who has spent most of her life underweight this is not something I do more than perhaps bi-annually but having noticed that my tummy seemed not to be entirely flat any longer I saw fit to land myself on the scales........grrrrrr, for the first time in my adult life I seem to have put on weight!!! Ok, it is only a few pounds..... I still don't struggle over 8 stone and it's something my doctor would be pleased with but I am most certainly not. PG of course, having waged the weight battle for all of his adult life couldn't resist tormenting me about 'middle aged spread' etc.

My other alarming incident was also bodily. I bent down to pick something up off the floor and in doing so my right knee made a rather alarming cracking sound and hurt like hell, rendering me 'stuck' in a somewhat uncomfortable position. Even more aggravating was finding that my attempt to lever myself back to an upright position with my left leg, found it wanting, one leg alone struggled to propel me vertical again......what on earth happened to the strong gymnast I used to be!!!!

A sedentary, parked rear end down infront of the computer lifestyle, is what happened I think, perhaps not designed to keep ones body completely trim and fit. It is just not good enough something has to be done! Don't anyone dare mention age at this point please, I will not accept that age has anything what so ever to do with this decline in mobility. I have never done the 'keeping fit' thing, for years as a gymnast it was just part of my life now maybe I will have to consider a gym (oh hell), running, cycling or some other form of 'anti decline' activity.......grrrrrr, the thought of patronising a gym full of lycra clad individuals obsessed with their abs does nothing for me.....nothing at all!

Maybe I will just settle for a few exercises, a bit of walking and a staple diet of something other than chocolate! I recall my mother telling me my lifestyle would catch up with me as I got older.....I refuse to admit just yet that she had a point!

Oatso expensive!

As one who considers herself hard to be swayed by the endeavors of advertisers I have a sad admission to make.

I know full well that those in the advertising business play on our weakness. They hit us where it hurts and do their damnedest to sell us products we neither want nor need in all manner of nefarious ways. One only has to look at the sales figures the following day, for a product that has been nationally advertised on TV the the previous evening to see the success advertising has, or consider the vast sums spent on promoting an item to realise just how well it works. Despite all that I thought myself somewhat immune.........until yesterday!

There is currently an advertising campaign on UK television for a product called 'Oatso simple', this, as it's name suggests is a breakfast cereal made of oats, in fact it is hailed as a microwave version of porridge but available in a myriad of exciting flavours.

Ever lazy in the kitchen, when presented with this item in my supermarket I weakened and purchased a pack!

What did I find on opening said pack yesterday morning? Seven little packets of something very akin to porridge oats is what I found. Not to be offput I followed the instruction. This was even for me, with my limited interest in things culinary, not a challenge...... empty contents of small paper bag into bowl, add 180ml of semi-skimmed milk and microwave for two and a half minutes. Bingo!

What was the end result? A bowl of porridge, incidentally a very small bowl of porridge,...........nothing too strange about that perhaps but somehow I had expected something maybe a little different for the price.

What sat sadly in the bottom of my bowl was exactly the same stuff as I would have enjoyed had I bought an ordinary, run of the mill packet of porridge oats, added some milk and microwaved it, as I have on numerous occasions. There was one big difference, the price!! I would hate to consider the cost per kg for Oatso simple but I think it would be bordering on that of prime beef!

I was had, the advertisers did their bit and got me, they well and truly got me!