Alf's World Cup

So, here I am on a course in Washington, DC. The England v. Uruguay match is happening on Thursday. There is no chance of an early finish. I make sure everyone knows, my UK colleagues, our team members from Ottawa, and our US trainers we DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE SCORE. Only one other UK colleague wants to see the game but doubts whether he can restrain himself from checking the score.

3pm comes. Kick off. I close my BBC tab on Firefox. I do not know know the score. Half times passes. I resist the urge. We get to 5pm and we still have things to cover. It's all over now. I do not know the score.

I have checked the TV schedules. One of the ESPN channels is reshowing the match at 10pm.

We meet in the hotel foyer. There are the midweek freebie beers. I sit perpendicular to the hotel TVscreen. No-one tells me the score. Four of us go to dinner. I have two TV screens to avoid. One colleague, my fellow footie enthusiast, has not returned from his mall run. He could be tired. He could be too traumatised to join us for a post-meal ale. I still don't know the score.

Look, you know what's coming. Just feel my pain.

Our Canadian colleagues walk past our restaurant window and fail to see us but obviously going to the next door establishment; there is nothing else beyond.

My UK colleagues are uninterested, maybe even disinterested, in the football. It's 9.30pm , they head home, I head next door to intercept the Canadians. Wahey, there is at least one who wants to watch the footie. We all head to the Oirish Bar nearby.

I still do not know the score.

We order beers. I ask if we can get the England game. I know it's on one of the ESPN channels. At 10pm. It's 10pm. The TV screen, one of many in the bar, remains, unchanged. One of the Canadians goes to the bar to enquire. The barman gets the flicker out and changes channels. He finds ESPN2 showing "World Cup 2014". This does not look promising. There is no football, just talking heads. Then there is a clip of Suarez, diving to the ground celebrating a goal.

""Uruguay 2-1 England.

Oh, FFS, you could not make it up.

The shame, I even ended up drinking Bud Lite. And introducing a Canadian colleague to the word "clunge".

I didn't get to see the match. I even short changed the barmaid when, given two $5 bills for a a $10 note, I forgot to add the $5 to the bill. She took it well.

And I have to rely on Balotelli to save our bacon. Twice.

iPod Alf 2

Wahey! My iPod has shuffled back into life!

Did you see what I did there?

iPod Alf

Had a call from No. 1 Daughter this morning saying, "I've some bad news for you".

Immediate panic.

"It's really bad news."
"WTF* is it?"
"Mummy's just found your iPod in the pocket of your trousers in the washing machine."

Haw, I was actually quite relieved that was all and that no-one had died. A cunning tactic. It was certainly cunning of Mrs Alf to get No. 1 Daughterto impart the bad news.

"Where is it now?"
"It's on the hot plate of the cooker."
"Kin' 'ell! Move it off there now. Go and put it in the airing cupboard to dry out slowly."

Alf's luck will be it survived the wash and was fried on the cooker with Mrs Alf trying to dry it out. No common sense at times. Surely by now she knows how hot that plate warmer can get?

* Ok, I missed out the TF.

Cambridge liberal rant

On the subject of David Gilmour's son's prison sentence an anguished response from Cambridge academics.

Oh, pulease, stop before I fvcking cry. The Cambridge liberal-ati are wailing again.

No surprise this hand-wringing bilge was sent to the Grauniad.

“Last autumn, our students protested against the assault on universities and we believe they were right to do so. We must hope such worrying travesties of natural justice do not deter people of conscience from speaking up in these difficult times.”

Ok, let's just stop there. This "assault" on our universities? Explain WTF I should fund useless, thick tw@s to "study" pointless degrees simply to enable them to live off benefits whilst saddled with £30k of debts?

Is it possible, just possible, that if you open up tertiary education to every Tom, Dick or Harriet that the pot of gold will not spread round very far? And that either you restrict degree level education to those most academically suited to it, or you require those benefiting from that education to pay for it? Or do they really mean that we should ever expand their particular corner of the public sector and the dear old taxpayers pick up the ever rising bill?

Or perhaps they mean that with a £150bn public spending deficit their cherished empires should be immune from savings?

Oh yes, "speaking up". Let's see what Mr Gilmour had to say on this particular protest:

“Let them eat cake, let them eat cake, they say. We won’t eat cake, we will eat fire, ice and destruction, because we are angry, very f------ angry.” And also “storm Parliament” and “arson”.

Well there's a coherent and logical argument against education spending cuts from a priviliged Cambridge undergraduate.

I might have had a bit more sympathy if a bunch of middle-aged, middle class, sopping liberal academics had stormed the gates of Parliament to protect their budget when all around people are losing their jobs because of Brown's financial catastrophe. Instead, we get some pathetic bleating from deep inside an ivory tower, dressed up as solidarity for a pathetic criminal.

There are times when one truly fanatises about beating this people with an LAPD nightstick in time with the mantra "The-world-does-not-owe-you-a-fvcking-living".

Right, time for my medication.

Which illicted this rant from The Rev :

I'd have sent the little tvrd dahn for a ten stretch. I am FVCKING FED UP with champagne fvcking socialists. In fact, the only people remaining in this benighted cvntry who have left-wing views are people who have been to bleedin' public school, pointless academics, and the kind of public-sector leech that ought to be doing a proper job. Even the latter are only in it for the fat pension, and like their fellow-traveller dole-scroungers, will sell their allegience to whoever will let them sponge of the bloated teat of the state the longest. Look at that monstrous cvnt Ed "couldn't be more public school if someone stuffed a hot crumpet between his cheeks" Milliband. I mean FVCKING H3LL. At least in the old days there were crusty old miners and people who could claim to be working class going on about nationalisation and Marx and the like. I blame Tony Benn, the tw@, although even he manages to look like an elder statesman these days, compared to all the limp-wristed fvckwits and tvrdwipes mincing around Westminster pretending to be radical but actually just being AR53H0LES.

The Rev was right

I got a response from National Express regarding my complaint about lack of transport for my bicycle. Looks like Goaty Steve (aka The Rev ) was right. Well, apart from the abuse:

Dear Mr Alf,

Thank you for your recent email.

I was sorry to read that you were unhappy with the service we provided on the 26th May, after you were informed that you would be unable to board the 22:43 service with your bicycle as the available spaces for bicycles on the train had already been taken. I do appreciate your frustration at having to leave your bicycle at Cambridge station, although I'm afraid I can only state that you were correctly advised that you could not board the train with your bicycle in this instance. As stated on our website, we are only able to carry four bicycles on these services at one time and spaces are allocated on a first come, first served basis.

With respect to the use of a smaller train for the 22:43 service that evening, we aim to provide a suitable number of carriages for each journey and I am sorry that you felt this was not the case in this instance. We welcome all feedback from our customers and I have logged your comments on your database for the attention of our senior management team.

Thank you for contacting National Express East Anglia.

Yours sincerely,

National Express

Bikes, trains and a beer festival

I knew I should have tried fixing the new bike lights to my bike. And still I didn't. Instead, I waited until around 2220, scrabbling around in the dark beside the railings surrounding the beer festival venue with the clock ticking away to main train departure at 2243.

I then dropped the nut that fixes in position the strap of the light mounting. It disappeared into the long grass never to be seen again. Bugger. And steadily the clock ticked away to 2243. There was nothing for it but to hold the light in position and pedal furiously to the station.

I made it with about 90 seconds to spare only to find that the train already had its complement of 4 bikes and couldn't take any more. So I had to leave the bike locked up outside the station and go home without.

I think a stiff letter to National Express is called for.

Subject: Message to National Express

Yesterday evening I took the train from Newmarket to Cambridge with my bicycle and planned to return on the last train back, departing at 2243.

When I arrived, along with 2 other passengers (unconnected to me), I was unable to board with my bike. I was told that the train had its full complement of 4 bicycles.

I am extremely dissatisfied with the service of National Express for a number of reasons.

First, why was it not possible for your train staff to use their discretion whether to allow more bicycles to be boarded? I fully understood that the driver did not want his exit impeded but it would have been perfectly possible for them to have been stowed at the other end. I and my fellow passengers stated we were perfectly happy to stand with our bicycles to ensure they did not cause an obstruction. Your staff insisted they had to follow "health and safety" policy yet with a little imagination (particular from those drafting this particular policy) safety could have been retained and your paying customers not inconvenienced.

As it is, I now have to make an unnecessary journey to collect my bike from Cambridge station.

Secondly, why was such a small train provided for the last service of the evening? I took a 3-car Class 170 train at 1915 from Newmarket yet the last service of the evening was provided by a single car Class 156. Surely it makes sense to have a 2 car train for the final opportunity for
passengers to take the train home in the evening?

Finally, I am now concerned that I cannot rely on this service in the future if I need to cycle to and from Cambridge station. The train is already the only public transport available in the evening following the changes to an already dismal bus service. If I cannot be sure I can get
home with my bike (barring an unfeasibly large number of fellow cyclists turning up at the same time) what is the point of using your service?

I hope you will give these issues serious consideration and not simply retreat behind the usual "health and safety is our highest priority" mantra. I know it is and I'm not suggesting you compromise it. I am suggesting there are ways to modify your policies to improve the service to your paying customers and maintain a safe level of service.

And a reply via Dr Zep :

Dear Cunstormer

You sir are a gvnt, WTF should we lay on a gold plated service for beered up Newmarket residents who no doubt are breaking the law by cycling whilst under the influence, consider it an extra service that we saved you from yourself, now feck off back under the rock you came from.

Yours sincerely

Irrational Express

PS Don't let the above put you off making that second unnecessary journey to pick up your bike on our fine rail service, just make sure you don't plan to return on the last train with it again ahahahaha.

Over to The Rev who has the real response.

Parking ticket update

Ha har! It pays to complain. I had a letter today from Cambridge City Council. My car was "clearly parked on yellow lines" but the ticket is being cancelled as an act of goodwill.

Yeah, right. I think this shows that they would have had an uphill battle convincing the Traffic Penalty Tribunal that this was fair or proportionate.

What annoys me is that many people in the same position would simply have paid up.