Bin day blues.

Today was bin day. I remember once upon a time when we had proper bins. Corrugated metal ones with a lid and two handles. We used to keep them down the back yard, out of the way. Every week on bin day the dustman would come, lift the bin deftly over his shoulder, walk the bin to the dustcart and empty it. Then he would bring the bin back and replace it exactly where it came from.

Nowadays, we have plastic bins. With wheels on. We have to put them out front ourselves, at the side of the road, all ready for the bin man to wheel it all of about six feet to the back of the lorry, where it is magically lifted by levers and automatically emptied, no effort required.

The poor old dustmen do this to my bin once a fortnight now, not weekly. I think the least they could do is put the bin back where they found it. Not half way down THE FUCKING ROAD!!!

Happy Birthday.

It was my car's 100,000th birthday today. Yes, one hundred thousand. Well, I've moaned about her in the past, but she keeps going, more or less, so thanks to the old gal.

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Pee Six-Oh-Nine Jay-Kay-Why-iiiii,
Happy birthday to you.

.99 - What's that all about?

Go shopping anywhere in the UK and almost everything is priced £XX.99 - what the hell is all that about? It sounds less? So saying 'twelve ninety-nine' sounds less than 'thirteen' does it? Bollocks it does!

And think of some of the implications in this pricing mentality: How much small change swaps hands unecessarily? And how many holes in pockets have had to be fixed because of it? How much bigger do all the price tags have to be to accommodate the extra .99 - twice as big?... and twice as much ink used to print them!

Apart from that, how stupid is it getting just a penny change from £150 after buying say, a camera, for £149.99. Keep the sodding change. Or better still, just bring out a fucking 99p coin!

I think the only thing to cost 99p should be an ice cream with a flake in it.

Give us a clue?

How many times have you stopped at a roundabout to give way to a driver approaching from the right who is not using their indicator lights and then turns left? Infuriating or what!

Are they just forgetful? Lazy? No, they're just PIG BLEEDIN' IGNORANT!!

Strictly Enough Dancing!!!!

Strictly Come Dancing - Who friggin' cares? Not me for one. This banal programme is on every night on BBC. EVERY FRIGGIN' NIGHT. And when it's not, it's mentioned on Breakfast news. And Evening news. And the One show. There's even an analysis show, for fuck's sake.

OK, a lot of people may like ballroom dancing, but does it warrant being mentioned almost hourly on BBC? Let's get 24-hour Rammstein on BBC4. That'd be more like it.

And as for the theme music. Aaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhh!!! All together now... Da da da da, da da daa, Da da da da, daaaaa. Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhh!!!

If Carlsberg did beer festivals...

...they'd probably be nothing like this! Yesterday I attended what might be the most miserable beer festival in my life. And I've been to a few.

It was in a marquee, it was raining, it was cold and it was windy. There was straw all over the ground and it smelled (smelt?) like a cattle market without the poo. Apparently one of the tents had blown down a couple of days before. The beer was too cold to taste on the day. I could go on, but I won't.

It wasn't all the organiser's fault. They have done some great little festivals in the past. But this one didn't tick any of my boxes. Sorry.

Finally done it!

Well (as the B52's song says), here it is. I 've been thinking of starting a blog for ages but never got around to it.

It's just somewhere to vent my spleen about all the shit that happens. I might even post about nice things too... We'll see.