The Land of The Point.

Time for a bit of vicarious venom, I think.
A good chum of mine is busy trying to break her leg or contract green monkey disease so she will not have to attend a work conference at which, she knows only too well, she will have to proverbially dance the powerpoint polka.
The prospect of this useless, tedious and annoying annual get together prompted her to call on conferences to be Granthamed and I have to say I am happy to oblige.
I don't have to attend work conferences in my line but I have either covered them or been along to keep my soon-to-be ex-wife company at ones she has been to in the past. My experiences, therefore, have not been particularly souring - I got to stop in a hotel somewhere different, I got the chance to nick some new towels for Pither Towers, to add to my internationally acclaimed collection of plastic shower caps and to drink myself into a stupor, all at someone else's expense! Hurrah!
The poor saps who, however, had to attend the daytime talks, presentations, workshops, discussion groups and similar assorted bits of business bollocks were not quite so fortunate and they had my sympathy.
The focal points of all this crap are the loathsome "powerpoint presentations". They basically involve some git - who probably doesn't want to be there either - droning on and on and intermittently using an executive pointy stick to point to words he has just said but which are also on the screen behind him!! What (points to powerpoint screen) is the fucking (points again) point in that (final, vigorous point)? The room is always too warm, there is always the hum of the air conditioning and so it is hard enough not to nod off but then the subjects of these little slices of death make it almost impossible - "The 21st Century client and the continuing need for socks", "Cash flow projections for hosiery and associated sub-divisions of Pants R Us", "Know your customer, know yourself" and "Retail, rip-off and retire."
Then there are the completely facile "workshops". You sit around with a bunch of other pissed off people and try to thrash out some problem of great import, such as "Breaking into Taiwan with the self-assembly, flange-powered grommet leveller."
Alternative sessions challenge you and another bunch of idiots to fashion something like a serviceable spacecraft out of cardboard boxes and some party poppers left over from the Christmas party! Why? If it could be done, wouldn't fucking NASA have done it already?
The whole nightmare is usually rounded off by an address by the bloated, smug, Fascist git who runs the company and he or she tells you that while Nazi Knitwear "believes and invests" in its "team" it wants profits increased from the paltry 700 per cent rise this year to 8.5 billion per cent by this time next year. Fuck off!
My chum made the not too ridiculous suggestion that all this crap should be written down and posted out, thus saving on the expense of an hotel and the bar bills of men who have just gone along to keep their soon-to-be ex-wives company. The reason, apparently, is that everyone has to get together to "bond". If you actually WANTED to bond with these people, wouldn't you have done it already? You don't "bond" because the only thing you have in common is the fucking awful job you do. If you happen to quite enjoy your job you are tempted to believe it is fucking awful after you have attended one of these corporate scrums. It's like having to meet up with people you met on holiday - you realise on your return home that the only thing you had in common with them was that you were both on holiday at the same time!
No, corporate conferences (points with pointy stick) can go.

Pals and The Proof of the Pudding.

On a what is proving to be a day in which I have had a serious attack of blogorreah, I feel I have to balance the negatives with at least one positive - aren't pals the best thing in the world, ever!!!!
The other weekend I was bemoaning my lot in the pub, as is my custom, and droning on and on about how I absolutely adored steak and kidney pudding - note, PUDDING, not pie - but had not had one since I was a kid.
I have attempted to make them but my efforts to date have proved disastrous - suet pastry and muslin bags are tricky coves. So what happens today? Pals Phil and Sarah ring up to say that they have made me a PROPER pud! They have even printed off instructions on how to ensure it is steamed properly! This pair took up their Saturday morning making this magnificent creation for me and I shall be tucking into it tomorrow for lunch - heaven!
No empty "you're our friend" words - just actions which speak louder!! Pud-actions!!
Phil, Sarah and their little one, Hannah, are hereby granted lifetime immunity from deportation to Grantham, as are all my other pals.

Baby-Obsessed New Parent On Board.

...........This is going to upset so many of my chums but, while the rant is still with me, what about "Baby On Board" and worse still "Small Person On Board" signs in cars? What the bloody Hell is that all about?
A friend who has one in her car once tried to justify it to me with an explanation that was about as lame as Douglas Bader on sticky lino!
She claimed that the signs were there for the benefit of the emergency services in the event of a car crash. Apparently, the police and firefighters spot the notice and so know they have to rescue a baby from the wreckage, a baby they might otherwise have overlooked. There is one word for that reasoning.............and the word is "bollocks!"

Firstly, these gushing parent-types invariably drive around with the sign still up while little Jackasta or baby Moonchild is nowhere to be seen. What happens if, God forbid, they are in a smash then? Firemen spend four hours sifting through the tangled metal which was once their family-friendly people carrier looking for a bloody sprog who isn't there!
Secondly, if they do crash, are they seriously trying to tell me that a small notice made of card and sellotaped to the inside of the back window has more chance of surviving the impact than a fully strapped-in, babyseated object which is all noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other? That dog don't hunt!! If the wreckage is so mangled that a baby could be overlooked or the scene is a fireball, how the buggery bollocks is a piece of card supposed to be still visible?
No, these notices serve one purpose, and one purpose only - to announce to all and sundry "I've had a baby, I've had a baby, I've had a baby!!!" Well, bully for you. I bloody know you've had a baby! You and your sort run me down with your sodding pushchairs and prams whenever I'm out shopping, your brats scream the place down and throw mashed potato at me when I go out to eat and whenever we meet up you bring a lorryload of baby accessories with you and we have to spend all our time talking about how firm your spawn's shit has become and how they are merely expressing themselves when they crayon on your fucking wallpaper!
It's Grantham time. Baby On Board, Small Person On Board, Princess On Board, Annoying Little Drain On Us Childless Taxpayers On Board signs can all go.

4 TO55ER5!

Personalised car registration plates! There is just one word for them.....and the word is "wanky"!
I understand that personalised plates can be an invaluable aid to some members of society. People who are so brain dead that they can't even remember their own name can nowadays just nip outside to the drive and take a look at their car to be reminded. Sadly, these people are so mentally disadvantaged that they probably return to announce that they are called Peugeot 405 or Crossply 330 or something. These are the sort of people who have to have "L" and "R" printed on their wellies or C&A woven into their knickers.
Apart from that, what does having a personalised number plate say about someone? Well, I for one instantly know that the person behind the wheel is the sort of bore who has his own inscribed, pewter tankard behind the bar at his local. He is so insecure that he (or she) feels the need to announce his presence to the world in case no-one ever gives him a second thought because he knows that he is, in reality, a shallow, unimportant, boring, thick, vacuous, personality vacuum! These plates are the ultimate chav accessory. Uuurrgghhhh!
I blame the Queen. She started it. HRH 1 and all that. Chav!
Get thee to Grantham.

I Hate Barry Scott!

I didn't know until last night that I hated Barry Scott. The reason? - because until last night I had no idea who bloody Barry Scott was.
One encounter was all it took, just one! Believe me, to know this individual is to hate him.

Mr Scott exploded onto the box during telly-selly time to SCREAM out an advert for Cillit Bang. He shouted and bawled from start to finish, so much that so that I almost dropped my chips and stopped having sex with the dogs!! What a git! I hate people who shout all the time - empty vessels, and all that.
Cillit Bang is, apparently, a product which eradicates scum and filth - now there's a supreme irony for you! You could be forgiven for shouting about a cure for Aids, getting over excited about peace in the Middle East or raising your voice in condemning the BNP - but a bloody bog cleaner?
No. No more to say. Barry Scott goes to Grantham.

The Seven Pillars of Crassness

"Visited by Lawrence of Arabia"!!! This has to be one of the greatest pub notices of the 21st Century? I am cursed with a mind which frequently goes off at a tangent and spotting this fascinating piece of information outside a boozer in Small Town today conjured up miriad images:

T E Lawrence: "Oh hi! I'm just passing, can I use your loo?"
Landlord: "Bollocks, chum! You buy a beer or or some nuts like everyone else. And while you're about it, get that fucking camel out of here as well!!"
..........or how about:
Landlord, in reply to a question posed by Lawrence: "Yes mate. Well, you turn left out of the door, go to the end of the street, turn left, take your first right and then follow the signs for the motorway southbound until you get to Dover. Then you hop over to Calais, keep in the southbound lane until you get to the coast, cross to Africa, then ask."
.........maybe even:

Gaffer: "Jesus H Christ! Are you ever lost! No, raghead, We've got the United game on here. You need to go to Watford for the Damascus v Cambridge friendly."
Oh dear. Lawrence is another of my heroes, if not my biggest hero. I am not "a traveller on the other bus" but he did more for gay lib than any man alive. That is not why he was more superb than a superb thing but, what a man! It's not his fault, admittedly, but cruddy notices laying claim to great figures from history can go to Grantham.

Reef Encounter II - aka The Hill.

Day 7 - the protest reaches almost Biblical heights!

.....and the sulk gets worse - "Im not coming out!"




(First-timers, see "Reef Encounter" post from two days ago).