Useless bastards

On a tangent, just how fucking long does it take an accounts department to decide that an invoice has been filled in incorrectly? You wouldn’t have thought it would take long, would you? Particularly when the “essential” information (their words, not mine) is the address of the company that the invoice was done for. But no, two weeks down the line, and the only reason I find out about this “error” is when I ring them to find out why the hell they haven’t paid me yet. Then they find the time to tell me what the problem is. Two weeks. Cunts. Absolute fucking cunts.

Why did no-one tell me that 2003 is obviously the year of the pedantic fuckwit bureaucrat? I’ve had enough of ’em, and we’re not even halfway through the year. If I’d known it was Chinese Year of the Twat, I’d have gone into hibernation ’til 2004.

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Robbing bastards

Yet again, I’ve had to visit the bank that dare not whisper it’s name. Various reasons, but the main one comes down to this :

• I’m overdrawn – within my agreed limit, but it’s close
• I get charged £20 for going over the agreed limit
• I got charged for being over the overdraft limit.
• This charge put me over the agreed limit
• I’m now getting charged again for going over the limit – because of the charge that the bank took out of the account with no warning.

So can someone explain the logic of being charged on a bank’s charge?

Travelling

I swear, only my parents get this kind of luck. They were going off to France today, going by ferry (I think) – so of course it’s the day that there’s a strike in France. They’ve ended up travelling twelve hours later, and going via the Channel Tunnel instead. I hope the rest of the break goes more smoothly for them.

Enquiries

The Guardian has a story about the UK Government continuing to reject calls for an inquiry into whether the intelligence reports were bollocks (to paraphrase it slightly) – which seems almost to negate the need for the investigation. So far as I can see, if the reports had been accurate/true, then the government would be saying “Yup, no worries, investigate away“. The fact they’re saying “there’s no need for an investigation” stinks of avoidance, denial, incipient cover-up, and virtually admitting that the “reports” were all a load of old shite.

Sometimes it seems to me that the current Labour government is doing absolutely everything in it’s power to ensure it’s ousted in the next General Election. I wonder what it is they’re trying to run away from?

Evanescence

In a weird set of coincidences in the last week, the band Evanescence have come to my attention. I’ve ended up with a copy of the album, along with some EP stuff, and it’s really pretty impressive. I don’t think my neighbours like it – but then, I’m only playing it during daylight hours, so it’s kind of tough – and it beats the everloving crap out of shite like “Hot in Herrre” and all the other rap-based garbage I get inflicted on me most of the time.

Quid pro quo. *Grin*

Political Brother

The BBC has a piece on what politicians can learn from Big Brother. (Personally, I thought the Government’s Big Brother programme, involving installing CCTV on every street corner in the country – but no, this is about the Channel 4 programme of the same name.) Supposedly they could learn more about how the public perceives them (other than as the only industry estate agents can look down on) from the way the media and public reacts to events on Big Brother. Which sounds like a complete load of bobbins, but then I’m not in PR, so what would I know?

However, it did give me a vision of a future where we had “Big Brother – The Election” – the leaders of the major parties go into a secluded House with a limited budget, and discuss their relative policies and politics. Then the people phone in their votes for the party they like the most. Worryingly, it’s actually likely to be a way of attracting more of the electorate (particularly those precious 18-30 votes, the apathetic ones who can’t be arsed to get to a polling station) than the current methods.

Then again, maybe we can just return to ancient rome, and have a Gladiatorial Circus as an election method. Survivial of the fittest, and all that.

The Wedding

Unaccustomed as I am to attending these ceremonies, I still find that I actually enjoy attending them. I know it’s a paraphrasing of a line from another film – most of which I hate, but I find I’m completely in awe of people who make a commitment on this level, to see the people I care about being this happy. To know that (regardless of divorce and so on) these people have decided that they want to be with each other, and with no-one else, for the rest of their lives, I honestly wonder if I could ever see myself doing the same thing.

The wedding was held in Westbury-Sub-Mendip, (a small picturesque Somerset village.) in the church of St Lawrence. Very pretty – and again, held on a perfect summer’s day, which always helps immensely. One good thing was the brevity of the service, at just under the hour – and it was a really smooth service. I’ve seen some that were pretty chaotic, or just that went on for too long – this wasn’t one of them.

Even the photographer was fairly swift – although he did have a bloody annoying habit of standing in the way of everyone else who was wanting to take photos. There were several comments around about what could be done with that flash-gun…

And then on to Chelwood House for the reception.