D4D™ is Two

The birthday party yesterday went well. 232,000 words, 1,925 posts, and still going strong. The cake in the shape of a Blogger logo was very successful, but a couple of the other little blogs got too excited, and the jelly and ice-cream made a bit of a mess on the carpet.

Pass-the-parcel was very successful, with little presents of USB sticks and more memory being gratefully received. The little bouncy trigger-jigger toy is already broken, but in general it’s been a pleasant little party, and d4d is now happily asleep with dreams of trucks of jelly and ice-cream, and what the next year will bring.

Central Trains

Fuck Central Trains. Fuck them, and their pox-ridden so-called service. They’ve managed something I thought was actually impossible, and provided a train journey that made me think Virgin weren’t so bloody bad after all. I raise my hat to you, you motherfuckers.

First of all, it’s the prices. £55.00 for a single ticket from Manchester to Norwich. Jesus H Christ with a moneylender on a spear. To get to Reading return costs the same amount. Extortion is alive and well and living in Norfolk. Four and a half hours on a train too, thank frig it’s direct.

Well, direct is a bit of a loose term for it, to be honest. Manchester – Sheffield – double back to Chesterfield – then on to Nottingham, Peterborough, Ely, then turn round again and double back to Thetford and Norwich. About as direct as tagliatelle.

It’d all be OK still though. Get to the station, look at the time-table, and it’s on-time. Yay, bonus. In the time it takes me to get down to the platform, that changes from on-time to “Oh bollocks, didn’t we tell you? It’s 30 mins late.” Grrrrr. Turns out there’s no way they didn’t know, because the cunting bastard motherfrumping tosstwadge had been half an hour delayed on the earlier train to Liverpool, so there was no way the bugger was going to get that back. They’re just all lying cunts. No two ways about it.

Anyway, the train finally arrives, and yes, there’s a table seat. Bonus. I can get some work done. Then the oriental horde of horror arrives. A certain lack of personal hygiene pervades the carriage, and then yes, you guessed it, three of ’em decide my table is fair game. Fair enough, it’s a table, and there’s space. However, the concept of personal space appears to be utterly beyond these backpack-wearing fuckheads, and so while the packs get slung in a pile on a spare seat at the back of the carriage (can you say “Luggage space”, central trains, you arse-licking ring-nudging profit-based flangesuckers?) my ribs then end up black and blue due to the introduction of sharp (and sweaty) oriental elbows into my vicinity. Repeatedly, even after a fairly loud “would you watch where you’re sticking that, you idiotic tosser?”.

What a shocker – knowing that the train’s already delayed, and overcrowded to a “Black Hole of Calcutta” level that gets some travellers (OK, Me) muttering about calling out the EU court of Human Rights, the guard doesn’t make an appearance at all. In fact, the only evidence of there being a guard at all was that there were announcements about each station, accompanied by a “sorry for the delays”. Were they sorry? Were they fuckaslike. If they’d been sorry, or even felt any need to inform the rather pissed-off hordes of anything, they’d have let us know just HOW late the bastard thing really was. If you were lucky enough to be in a position to see a monitor at a station with the expected time of arrival versus when it was supposed to have arrived, then you could figure it out – other than that, you were shit out of luck.

The service (if I can call it that) finally arrived in Norwich at 7.15, having been supposed to arrive at 6.10. No word on where we’d lost another 45 fucking minutes, no apology, nothing. Now, where’s the address for Central Trains customer service director? I’ve still got the (unchecked) ticket, I think there’s going to be some orbital letterage going on…

Winner Takes All

Not quite sure how we managed it yesterday, but even after a drive back from Norfolk to Bracknell via a drop-off in Aylesbury, followed by general domestic gubbins, a shop in the Tesco from Hell™, and a degree of lethargy, we still managed to win the local pub quiz last night. 32 out of 40, and five of the incorrect answers were based on stories out of the day’s Scum Sun “newspaper”.

Eight drinks are now ours for free over the next few days. All very worthwhile. But I’m still stunned we won. They must’ve known it was d4d™’s birthday, and been charitable towards us. All the same, woo, and indeed yay.

Away

So, I’ll be in the Reading/Bracknell area for most of next week. Any suggestions on where we should/shouldn’t go?

Anyone suggesting the St George and Dragon in Wargrave will receive a quick slap. (Having just looked, I’m currently 24th in Google for the search ‘“george and dragon” wargrave‘ – I wonder how high up the ratings I can go?)

Please bear in mind that, while all suggestions will be gratefully I received, I may do any, all, none, or some of them. There’s no guarantees at all. If I do, the suggester will be duly noted in anything I write about them. Other than that, well, *shrug*

Trackback

I wish I understood Trackbacks. I just tried linking to Gert’s post on fireworks, and it wouldn’t work. Gah. So much for being a techie.

Right, I’m going to go back to working on databases. I understand them.

Remember, Remember

For various obvious reasons, I’ve always been a fan of fireworks. Well, I have when they’re done properly, and safely. I’m sure Gert feels much the same and will comment too about this (Oh yes, she just has) but I’m glad to see that we’ve finally got some kind of firework curfew to limit “displays” to before 11pm. (with a couple of exceptions, such as New Years’ Eve and Nov 5th)

Another part of the new law makes it illegal for under 18’s to carry fireworks in a public place, which should (with luck) limit some of the scallie little bastards and their autumnal activities. I doubt it though.

To me, this new law actually doesn’t go far enough. I’d still like to see it made illegal to sell fireworks over the counter to the public in general. I’d then like to see the Government redirect the millions they spend each year on firework safety advertising into public government/council-funded displays in every town and city, where they can be enjoyed safely. Of course, it’d also make it far safer for general life, regardless of location, to not have to be worrying about some chavvy little cunt throwing fireworks at/near you, or through letterboxes etc.

Silly Season Slowdown

At last, the Summer Season on TV is beginning to come to a close. How can I tell? Because Big Brother ends tonight. Halle-fucking-lujah. I think I’ve actually managed to see a whole 2 hours of this dross in the seven-ish weeks it’s run, and I still wish I could actually understand what it is that people see in it. I’m sorry, but I just don’t. And what’s the fun in watching people sleep? That’s where I really do just get utterly confuzzed by the entire thing.

Even better, by the time the finale happens, I’ll be ensconsced in Norfolk for a couple of days. Now that’s far more appealing.