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18/08/2010 by Uncle.
This story brought tears to my eyes.
A firefighter was working on the engine outside the station, when he noticed a little girl nearby in a little red wagon with little ladders hung off the sides, and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle.
The girl was wearing a firefighters helmet. The wagon was being pulled by her dog and her cat. The firefighter walked over to take a closer look.
‘That sure is a nice fire truck,’ the firefighter said with admiration… ‘Thanks,’ the girl replied. The firefighter looked a little closer. The girl had tied the wagon to her dog’s collar and to the cat’s testicles..
‘Little partner,’ the firefighter said, ‘I don’t want to tell you how to run your rig, but if you were to tie that rope around the cat’s collar, I think you could go faster.’
The little girl replied thoughtfully, ‘You’re probably right, but then I wouldn’t have a siren.’
Meoooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
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10/08/2010 by Uncle.
Please excuse me if this post has slightly more typos than normal, but I am a very tired boy as the result of an urgent job we dealt with which I am pleased to say has had a happy ending.
The media is full of stories of murder an mayhem resulting from people meeting on social networking sites. One in particular seems to be a favourite. Meeting strangers that you have not actually met is always a risky business be it somebody with a sexy voice on the phone to somebody in a chat room or on fartbook or wherever.
However, the internet can actually make it a bit safer than the telephone because with web cams being an almost standard feature on a lot of PCs and net books etc you can see who you are talking to.
The job we have dealt with was a boy meets girl saga and as I said before it has happy ending, but it could have been very different and for awhile gave a few people some anxious moments.
At about 6.30pm on Sunday evening I got a phone call from somebody I had met and given one of my cards to who said that their 14 year old daughter had gone missing from home near Nice and the parents had reason to believe she had gone to Paris to meet a man twice her age could we help.
Of course we could, although I am not sure why they did not ring the police first as really this is their domain, but they did what they did and so did we.
The brief story was that it would seem that she met this bloke on line, chatted for several weeks and then arranged to meet in Paris.
Long story short the girl tells mum she is going to stay with a friend and heads to Paris. Fortunately the friend had not got the text telling her to cover for her and so rang Miss X at home to see if she could go out the next day. Mun answers the phone and says “Err I thought she was with you” Light blue touch paper and stand well back while ma heads into orbit. Which I fully understand.
I was able to get them to calm down and guided them through a search of her bedroom and her computer. I was a bit surprised at the parents reluctance to “Break the bond of trust by violating he privacy” Kin Ada your daughter is missing and you are worried about her privacy. Give me bloody strength. They almost had kittens about accessing her PC “Do you really think we should?” YES MADAM I DO.
Fortunately the PC was not password protected and we quickly established that she had bought her travel tickets and on line and although we did not know exactly where she was staying for sure, there was enough of a trail and clues for us to head for Paris. However there was still the fact that she had been lured away from home by a pervert and was possibly in danger.
One call to Cyclops was ll it took and by 10pm UK time two lads were on a Eurostar from London to Paris whilst I headed North on the TGV.
It was not the best nights kip I have ever had but by 6.30 I was with the others looking at what we had over coffee and croissant.
I wont bore you with the who did what as that is not the point of this post, however we were there for the two love birds first meeting. I think it fair to say it did not go quite as they had planned, actually it almost did not go as we planned it.
At about 10am we were where we thought the meeting was going to take place and indeed there was a very sexy young lady who appeared to be waiting for somebody. The problem was that we weren’t quite sure and she almost fitted the description BUT certainly did NOT look like the photo of a sweet innocent school girl we had been given by mum and dad.
At just after 10am on a cloudy Parisian morning a smiling young man with a shorish black curly hair carrying a lovely bunch of flowers walked confidently towards the girl. They looked at each other smiled big big smiles and leant forward to kiss when we intercpeted loves first kiss.
She was our girl and here was the pervert, although i have to say he didn’t look like a pervert just a normal young bloke who has suddenly found himself in the hands of two gentleman who very discreetly but forceably taken hold of him and clearly meant business and I have to say le looked very frightened and not at all dangerous.
I had a bad feeling about this.
The two parties were seperatedand I quickly established the young lady was the girl we were looking for her story fitted with what we knew and that this was their first meeting. I told her to stay where she was and went to have a word with the child snatcher.
It transpires he was doctor and that they had met on line blah blah blah the story was the same. I told him her age and his face drained of what remaining colour it had. He clearly went weak at the knees as the enormity of the situation it him and he kept saying “No No You’re joking, you have to be Joking” We assured him we were not some new comedy act and that we most certainly were not joking. He then started uttering “Oh my God” over and over. We sat him on a bench as it looked at one point as if he was going to faint.
He calmed down enough to tell us that she had told him that she was 18 and would soon be 19 and had been studying in France as part of a degree course. For her part she just cried and said she was sorry.
It was actually quite sad, him sitting there on a bench in the middle of Paris limply holding the beautiful bunch of flowers and her all dolled up with her cheeks stteaked with mascara.
Paris is not the best place to get a cup of tea in a crisis, but we eventually overcame this little problem and sat them down and sorted out what had happened.
There was nothing sinister. Silly and ill advised maybe but nothing untoward.
It took quite a while for us to get them calmed down, but eventually it was all sorted out with no hard feelings and time for us all to go our separate ways. Instead of tearful lovers kisses that would normally mark a romantic parting they gave each other shy embarrassed smiles and there was one last touch of his sleeve and a sorry and we turned and walked towards the train.
The story just emphasises that it makes good practice to know who you are dealing with. I dont just mean when dealing with people on line but in general. The story of the parking attendant is a variation of the same theme.
If you are going to meet somebody you have met on line (or do any kind of finacial transation with) then I would suggest that you ask for the most basic form of Identity verification and ask to produce and obtain a copy of
When and ONLY when you have these documents and are satisfied that the person on these documents is the same as the personcyou are talking is it OK to move on to arranging the meet.
If the person inquestion won’t or can’t show then treat them with suspicion, because in this day and age of scanners, digital cameras, web cams, skype, MS messenger it is dead easy to do this and there is no reason why somebody cannot provide you with a copy of one of these types of document.
Last but by no means least it is essential that you tell at least one person, but ideally two, the full details of who, where and when you are meeting and arrange a check in time. If you dont ring in they must ring you and if they dont get hold of you then they must alert the authorities.
These are our basic standard operating procedures and they work us and there is no reason they should not work for you and hopefully make things a bit safer for you.
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04/08/2010 by Uncle.
Some time ago we received a request by an organisation to track down a gentleman who had allegedly stolen a considerable amount of money. The communication was notably short on detail and the only contact we had was a mobile number and a gmail email account.
When we did speak to them the clients were vague to say the least and very cagey on how much had been stolen and how the theft had occurred. The combination of the lack of detail and us being somewhat intrigued as to why they had not approached les garcons en bleu we decided to have a nosey and see what was what.
So we contacted them to arrange a meet. They were very cloak and dagger and insisted on the utmost secrecy and we agreed to meet in a cafe in Weston Super Mare. It was a horrid day and the rain was lashing down and I was bloody soaked by the time I got the RV which was a grotty little café.
There were two middle aged men in suites looking very furtive in the corner and they could not have looked more out of place if they had tried. I got myself a cup of tea and went to the table and introduced myself. The two gents looked about them and I wondered if I should break the news to them that the Berlin Wall had come down some years ago and that there was no longer an East and West.
I decided that it would be wasted on them and sat down.
“Well gentleman what can I do for you?”
They looked even more furtive.
“This is very sensitive” said the older man looking very serious.
“So I understand which is why I am here” I assured him.
“We represent ….and organisation which has a car park for 150 cars” He said tentatively and stopped.
“Yes and so?”
“And 8 coaches” added the second chap.
A further silence. Christ this is going to take frigging weeks I thought seriously regretting not sending Cyclops.
“It was manned by a very pleasant attendant” Silence
“Good I am so pleased but what has that got to do with a substantial theft and me”
“He had a ticket machine”
“I think you will find that to be fairly standard practice” I said getting a little irritable.
They nodded. The older bloke continued “Charging cars £1 and coaches £5”
“Ok do I take it then that this fella has nicked some of the parking money then?” I asked trying to speed things a long a bit.
They looked even more sheepish and nodded “Well sort of”
“so why don’t you dig his details out from your HR records and hand them to the police or was he shagging the MD or something and is now blackmailing you”
The older man blushed “I did no such thing” he said indignantly “Sorry I was speaking metaphorically no offence intended”
“This parking attendant” continued the younger man worked there for 25 years.”
“An impressive records, shame there aren’t more people like that” I said
“Hmmm yes I suppose” He agreed half heartedly “ But you see one day, he just didn’t turn up for work.”
“So?” I said not really following where this was going
“Well we thought we had better phone the Council and get them to send a new parking attendant…”
“And?”
“They said the car park was our responsibility”…they went very silent “But we told them that was not correct and that the attendant was employed by the City Council”
I looked at them “ He wasn’t employed by the council was he?” They shook their heads and he obviously wasn’t employed by you or you wouldn’t have rung the council and we wouldn’t be having this chat would we?”
They shook their heads and looked very sorry for themselves.
“How much does the car ark take per day since he left” I asked
In a barely audible whisper the younger man said “On average £400 a day based on a 7 day week”.
I prodded the calculator on my snappy new Iphone and oohh lala assuming he took £400 per day, 7 days a week for 25 years this amounts to just over £36 million…Fuck me they weren’t lying when they used the word substantial and no wonder they were looking glum, but I couldn’t help myself smile.
“Its not laughing matter” said the older man rather crossly.
“You’re right” I said and then followed this little lie with a verbal estimate of our fees plus our commission.
The old fella looked rather put out and said “You have to be joking” I looked at him very intently. “Oh no I’m not and I just agree it is not a laughing matter. Furthermore I don’t take to kindly to being dragged to Weston super Mud on a wet day to have my time wasted. Is that understood”
They nodded.
“Do you own the land that the car park is situated on?”
“Yes we do and our organisation has done for over 150 years” said the younger man more positively
“Right well that’s something , so if you want us to get some of your money back you know our fees and we will want as much information about this man that you can give us”
They looked embarrassed and the starred at their tea cups
“You don’t know anything about this man do you?”
“Err no not really” they said
“Oh people called him Reg, he had a hip replacement and he had once been a water ski instructor in Spain in about 1970 and we think he had a villa there”
I don’t know why, but they looked very pleased with themselves at knowing so little about a man who stood on their land for 25 years making a possible £36 Million.
I have to say I sort of admire the bloke’s front, but the story just serves to underline that you should not take things for granted and always check who you are dealing with and make sure you know what is what, because if you don’t you will loose out.
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12/07/2010 by Uncle.
The last couple of days have seen the media focusing on the death of Raoul Moat and it cropped up in conversation yesterday when I was at a barbecue at the Mother in laws.
I was just enjoying a nice cold beer when I focused on the conversation around me. It made me wonder at what the world is coming to as I listened to people who really should know better saying that he police should have allowed family members into the inner cordon to assist in the negotiations. This prompted me to chip in and ask if Mr Plod should have also allowed Gaza in as well with his beers and chicken to give “Moaty” some support. Gazza of course is well know for his calm rational approach to life and is something of an expert on police procedures, albeit in relation to drinking and driving and domestic violence. I also ventured to suggest that maybe they could have got a local caterer to do a cake and all in all they could have had a nice little family gathering with us the tax payer footing the bill. The people looked at me and one chap with very trendy round wire frame glasses who looked like Ben Elton asked me “Are you taking the piss?”
Dickhead.
“Duh yes of course I am taking the piss, this was an armed siege not a friggin Moat family get together”
“But even so ” said one lady
“Even so what?” I asked
“The fact that the police used a Tazer cold have caused the man to spasm and shoot himself” she said
“And your point is what exactly. No doubt the police fired the tazer at him in an attempt to bring the situation to a non fatal conclusion.”
“Ah but it didn’t work so they killed him” said the lady triumphantly.
“I have to be honest with you madam, I think the police did cock up, because the truth is that they should have just shot him before the media circus arrived. I can tell you that in every country I know, they would have just popped him as soon as they found him. The story would be this…..We found him, he was armed he had used the weapons already he clearly was not prepared to surrender and thus presented a clear and present danger to the public and the public alike so we shot him”
They looked at me as if I was made of dog shit.
“In every other country in the world nobody would be having this stupid conversation. The fact is Moat was a murderer who chose to resort to cold blooded premeditated violence.” The mother in law had joined us and was beside me listening to the conversation and then said quietly to the other people “I think you are forgetting that this man shot and killed one man, seriously injured a young lady and then carried out a totally unprovoked attack on another.”
“Ah but the third man was a police officer” said Mr Glasses smugly looking and sounding more like Ben Elton by the minute.
“That is immaterial” said the MIL “And the fact that you seem to think it excuses the act shows that you have no sense of decency or reality”
He blushed slightly, but carried on “Oh I know all about reality and crime, I lecture in criminology at XXXX university.”
I Looked at him ” Very impressive, but I bet you don’t teach your students section one of The International Law of The Gun”
He smirked”What?”
“Section one states that If you choose to live by the gun you have to except to die by the gun.”
The trendy lady looked at me and said “Oh and I suppose you are an expert are you?” the group laughed, but in a flash my mother in law had lifted the front of my shirt to show the scar on my chest where the bullets had hit me last year. “As a matter of fact he is” she said. They went quiet for a few seconds and shuffled uncomfortably and looked at their glasses.
Ben Elton looked at me “So you think its OK for the police to have shot this man.
“Actually I do, but the fact you have over looked Mr Criminologist is that they didn’t shoot him, he shot himself. ”
“Ah but if he hadn’t been hit with a tazer he could still be alive”He retorted
“Look a few years ago nobody had Tazers so it would have been bang bang you’re dead straight off. I have to say I expect the officer used the Tazer in the hope the dick head would drop the gun thus saving him a) the need to write a report that would resemble war and peace and b) the ensuing investigation and questioning at the hands of load of office dwellers who have probably never even seen a real gun let alone had to deal with somebody holding one.”
“Oh yes, well that’s all well and good” said trendy lady ” But the police do have Tazers and they did use them and they could have and should have given him more time to make a reasoned decision”
“Reasoned decision? the police negotiated with him for six hours for fucks sake how much time did Moat give his victims, I’ll tell you fuck all”
“Language please Norman” chided the MIL
“Sorry. But all of this situation came about because of Moats decisions. It was his decision to get the gun, his decision to shoot the people he shot. It was his decision to go on the run and his decision not to surrender peacefully. He was a big boy playing in a big boys playground to big boys rules. Don’t make the murdering fucker sound like a victim because he wasn’t and I cannot believe that you even think that”
“They could have….”she said half heartedly
“Could have what? let me ask you do you have children?”
“Yes my eldest in just finishing her second year at University and my son goes up to Oxford the year”
“So how would you feel if Moat had shot your daughter and son”
“Oh you can’t say that, it is not the same thing at all” she said crossly
“Why not, he shot somebody else’s sons and daughter, just because they are not yours does not mean they don’t matter. You know full well that if it had been one of your kids that had been shot by Moat you would be saying why did the the filth waste so much time negotiating with his and they should have popped the fucker earlier”
“How can you be so sure” said the Ben Elton look alike
“Because Einstein people like you bump their gums and come out with wise words when it does not affect them, but they ain’t so philosophical when it is their turn to be touched by these things. I hope it never happens to you but if it does you wont be pontificating about the assailant being a victim, you will want them to suffer or die and when that happens I want you to remember this conversation. I think another beer is in order”
Victim my fat arse.
Live by the gun die by the gun Moat got what he deserved.
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12/06/2010 by Uncle.
I recently fulfilled a longstianding obligation to a young lady who visits this site reguarly.
She wrote to me a long time ago from the USA saying her brother was seriously injured whilst on service with the US Army and she was very concerned about him. I did say I would visit one day if I got the chance and I did finally manage to honour that promise.
The thing about being injured is that to start with it may make the papers and everyone is there for you, but as the days slip by other casualties fill those pages and you slip down the pecking order of importance until you re just some guy being a royal pain the arse holding everyone up.
“Hey fella you got no legs or some gaddamn thing move your arse, we got lives to lead”
“Fuck you ! do you think I would have stopped buying shoes and taken to using this fuckin wheel chair if I still had my legs you numb nut”
To start with there is support and assistance and counselling etc but that only lasts for so long and then you are on your own with of course the various departments of social services to help you.
There are a number of organisations, both in the UK and USA , who do excellent work fund-raising to help support these men and women who have had their lives so irrevocably changed in the the service of their country.
However whilst I applaud these efforts and the assistance they give I have a quaetion to ask.
Why is it necessary?
If you have a contract of employment with your country to fight its wars then in my opinion that country has a contract or duty of care to support you if you are injured in the execution of its policies.
The care and its financisng should not need to be subsidised by individuals.
I do not wish to insult those people who give so much time and make such an effort to help those who have been injured, I just feel that if you go and do the governments fighting then the least that government can do in return is provide sufficient support and assistance from the moment you hit the deck pumping blood to the moment your suffering ends. You should not be pushed from pillar to post and fed bullshit and made to fight tooth and nail for the bare minimum of assistance.
It seems to me that things are a bit one sided.
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11/06/2010 by Uncle.
Unfortunately I recently had the misfortune to attend a meeting in London with some corporate go getters.
It is a long story as to why I was there, and to be honest, I had been had over and had been conned into going. I wont bore you with the details, but if you are reading this you bastards I hope you sleep with one eye open.
And exhale and relax.
Any way, What a bunch of knobs they executive were,over three bloody hours of yak and the only bit that made any sense was when they said “Lets take a break”.
I have been fortunate to have missed or should I say ducked and dodged the managerial bullshit that seems to enthral us 24/7. That’s a joke by the way. At this meeting somebody accused me of being a communist because I did not hold with people being pestered whilst on holiday over some trivial bit of bollocks. Nor do I think people should answer calls on their days off or outside business hours. Yes there are times and certain jobs when it happens, but for the most part it is either just crap time/man management or plain stupidity on the part of people who think that work is the be all and end all.
Anyway whilst at this meeting some silly young lady was banging on about “team Players” and the “Team identity” and giving 110% and it made me think of one of those silly round robin things you get in your email.
The more I thought about it the more it made me smile. I was brought to my sense by this young lass saying to me in a very aggressive tone “Have I said something funny surrr?” in a somewhat insolent tone.
It took me an instant to realise that this pubescent bint was addressing me
“Sadly not ” - I replied with some serious restraint
“Why then” she snorted with anger “are you smiling during my presentation.”
It was bad mannered of me I will admit and I suppose if I had been in her position I would have been vexed as well. But I was not in her position, I was in my bum numbing brain deadening position.
I looked at this serious young lady with her wide angry eyes, flared nostrils and blushing cheeks. Did you know by the way that you blush from the nipples up and regrettably this thought filtered into my sexist head. My brain then sent a message to my eyes, which through no fault of mine, homed in on her chest. I know its wrong and I am not proud.
However, it will tell you the level of my boredom when I say that for the first time during this torture session did I realise that she not only had a rather exquisite chest, but it was only just contained in a revealing see through blouse with what looked like very slinky underwear.
I didn’t mean to smile more broadly, but alas I did.
More regret and head hanging on my part.
“What is so funny she bellowed” apoplectic with rage.
I stopped smiling and fixed her with a gamma death stare.
“Regrettably nothing” I said light blue touch paper stand well back
She let rip with a tirade of sound bytes about commitment, professionalism, something else and this and that and then she said if your not prepared to give 110% percent to this organisation then you should really consider if you should be in it.
I hardened my stare and she flushed and then I stood up. Everyone went quiet and looked uncomfortable.
“Well teacher if you have finished, let me start by saying that fortunately I am not a member of this organisation and I thank God for that with all my heart. Secondly, let me tell you something that might help you in the future.”
She was going to say something but decided against it.
“Perhaps young lady you would like to tell us what Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?”
You and your colleagues have banged on about giving more than 100% and infact some have asked for 103%, but do you know what makes up 100% in life?”
And at this point I have to be honest and say I had to dig deep into the old memory to hope I got the witty email right
“Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions”
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26., Then H-A -R -D-W-O -R -K is 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%.“
“K -N -O -W-L -E-D-G-E is 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96% ,but A-T -T -I -T -U -D-E is
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%”
The audience approved and I think the young lady appreciated it. I waited for the murmurs to die down. Actually I was hurriedly making sure that I go the rest right, because to be honest I am not the worlds best mathematician, but I had sort of learn this email off by heart, but even so.
“However B -U -L -L -S -H-I -T is 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 and that my friends equals 103%. but if you look at A-S -S -K -I -S-S -I -N-G that adds up to a staggering 118%” I have to be honest I couldn’t be arsed giving the individual numbers by this stage
“So, young lady one can conclude with mathematical certainty, that While Hard work and Knowledge will get you close and Attitude will get you there, its the Bullshit and Ass kissing that will be seen as giving more than 100% and that’s why I was smiling”
Actually the real reason why I was smiling was that the original email concluded with the words “REMEMBER SOME PEOPLE ARE ALIVE SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL TO SHOOT THEM’ and the wag who had sent it to me had added -OR NOT in your case (allegedly).
I do not envisage a return invite to the corporate ladder.
Actually, on a serious note. I asked if we would get tea and biscuits and they said that there was “no fiscal allocation for light refreshment” It made me ask how much does a cup of tea costs in theses places and to make such a dent in the corporate profit that they could not authorisation a fiscal allocation for such light refreshment.
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04/06/2010 by Uncle.
I had braved the volcanic ash and Ryanair’s baggage policy and met up with some long standing friends of highly dubious reputation.
I have to say, that having not seen the motley bunch for some time I was a little taken aback at how hang dog they seemed. There were the usual bad taste jokes too much beer and the evening ended with the inevitable ruby murray in the king Street Tandoori, but there was an air of melancholy about them.
Being the caring sort of geezer that I am and taking my mens welfare seriously I felt it was time to put all that managerial training to good use and to see if I could counsel them through this difficult time and to touch those sensitive issues, which would bond us and allow these troubled individuals to draw on their inner talents and strengths and thus overcome whatever bollocks was making them so friggin miserable.
“What the fuck is wrong with you lot? Christ you think you had your nuts chopped off the way you are all sitting here with faces like a wet Sunday, sorry Dave no offence intended”
Dave “No nuts” nodded back “None taken boss”- its a long story that can be summed up by the words bullet & balls - but moving on I looked at them “What is the problem?”
“Well ” said Dave looking a bit sheepish” It’s just that we are all getting old Boss and its all sort of slipping away from us like”
“What do you mean, what’s slipping away?” I asked.
“Life” said Andy G
“And what the hell has brought all this on, have you lot been watching Oprah or day time TV again” I asked
” Its The world cup” chipped in the Scouse Git.
“The world Cup? What the fuck has the the world cup got to do with the price of fish. More to the point what the hell has it to do with life slipping by?” I asked with not too much trace of the managerial touchy feelyness I had intended to practice.
“In 1966 we were all lads” chipped in Bunny Warren
“Yeah so what?” I asked still not seeing where this was going
“Well, there was loads of World Cups ahead of us and England won” Bunny went on
“yeah so”
“The thing is boss, we know you don’t follow football, but for starters we will probably only see another 4 maybe 5 world cups at tops and as things stand we probably wont see England win another one in our life time”
“Thats it?” I was dumbfounded. The world bloody cup, who would adam and eve it. They nodded gloomily ” You never know” I said trying to rally the troops “They might just pull it one out of the bag this time”
The looked at me every man jack of them. they didn’t say a word but looked at me with hard stoney glares. I shrugged “You never know lads, I mean fuck it if you dont have a go you cant win, they have as good a chance as everyone else”
Scouse Git looked at me and said ” I dont believe you sometimes boss, everyone here knows they are fucked, but you still think they have a chance.”
“Yeah of course I do it aint over till its over, and, as for only having 4 or 5 world cups left in you, well I have to be honest, I have never heard anything so friggin lame in all my life you wankers”
And then they started to laugh. I thought No Nuts was going to fall off his chair, his balance has not been so good since, since … well you know the ahhem accident.
The laughed like drains until the waiter asked if they were OK, decided they were and brought 8 more pints of Kingfisher.
Eventually they stopped laughing and I was able to ask what was so funny, because to be honest I had no idea what the joke was.
“You” said SG
“Me? what have I got to do with the world cup and being funny”
“Nothing it’s just that, well you always seem to think there is a chance you never seem to think you will loose …the eternal bloody optimist” SG shook his head and looked at me ” You look at life like a kid sometimes, have you ever thought you would loose because if you have then we have never seen it”
I can only assume they have been blinded by an accumulation of all that world cup fever over the years .
You see the thing is that for quite a long time I really didn’t care if I won or lost, but what I didn’t realise was that my self destruct mode was seen as eternal optimism. I have never been so ashamed and embarrassed in all my life.
BY the way I have a fiver on England.
and Spain
and Germany
and Portugal
Oh and Brazil, Italy and France.
Should just about cover the main players.
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29/05/2010 by Uncle.
I have to say, that even this old cynic was a bit taken aback by how little time it took for a minister of the new government to drop in the shit.
I also laughed like a drain as the excuses were trotted out as they tried to convince us that this was not just another case of another over paid wealthy MP taking the piss, but a, and I quote here “terrible personal and public tragedy”.
Fuck off is my repsonse to that.
Mr Laws (who is a millionaire) claimed up to £950 a month in expenses for five years to rent rooms in two properties owned by lobbyist James Lundie who just happens to be his “partner”, and I dont mean business partner.
Parliamentary rules since 2006 clearly ban MPs from “leasing accommodation from a partner”.
Mr Laws stated that he did not consider himself be in breach of the rules which define partner as ‘one of a couple… who, although not married to each-other or civil partners, are living together and treat each other as spouses’. However he also said “James and I are intensely private people, and we made the decision to keep our relationship private and believed that was our right. Clearly that cannot now remain the case. My motivation throughout has not been to maximise profit but to simply protect our privacy and my wish not to reveal my sexuality.”
OK in the normal run of the mill I would not have a problem with him living with some bloke and wanting to keep it secret, but by his own admission he admits he was living with the bloke as a couple and renting rooms from him at the same time.
How the fuck could he not consider that to fall inot the scope of the parliamentry rgulations.
The truth is that rather than being deeply private people blah blah the real reason he wanted to keep his relationship secret was because if anyone found out about it he knew he would be be in the shit for claiming these expenses.
I don’t believe him, but lets just say for one moment he did not understand the regulations, but I think it is a bit of worry that somebody with such a poor comprehension of the written English should be Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
What is worse is Lord Ashdown saying that Mr Laws is ” Mr Integrity” and then bleating on to say that “This turns on the question of what is meant by a partnership in the rules for members’ expenses. That is not the public view of what a partnership is… Whether or not this infringed the rules because they infringed the term ‘partnership’ as it is meant in the rules is a matter for the parliamentary commissioner to decide on.” Well Lord Ashdown let this member of the public leave you in no doubt, that as far as I am concerned Mr Laws is a lying thieving git. He was shacked up with Mr Lundie and claimed money for renting rooms from him when he should not have done.
He has taken the piss and Lord Ashdown is compounding it by excusing criminal behavoiur.
Oh and by the way I do not consider being caught a personal tragedy, I would call the death of Mr Camerons young son or Mr Borwns new born baby personal tragedy.
May be Paddy pants down should retire as well as he has clearly lost the frigging plot.
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21/05/2010 by Uncle.
As regular readers will know I don’t hold a very high regard for politicans and I am not a fan of Mr Camermoron. Not of him personally, but just of the fact that he has opposed a lot of things for the last few years but not really come up with too much in the way of policy of his own.
Time will tell, I mean who knows maybe this is the dawn of a whole new brave new political world.
Anyway be that as it may, I felt it a little unfair the other day when I read an article saying that the government had failed to deal with X problem.
To be fair its a little hard to see how the new cobolition could have done very much about anything in the short space of time they had been in office. What struck me as odd though was the response from the new minister which was something along the lines of ” The government has been working on this diligently with various agencies blah blah to do blah blah and will continue to do so in the future blah blah”
I think I would have said “Yeah so? The last goverment did do sweet FA because they were crap and that’s why the British public sort of gave them the tin tac and elected us”
Alas no such straight forward talking, just media speak.
The thing is, that this only serves to reinforce my jaundiced view, that not only do the politicians stick together, but the country is run hook line and sinker by Civil Servants. So whats the point of elections if you only change the name of the party but don’t change the government.
The other amazing thing about elections and government is that in a few months time you will not be able to find anyone who voted for the new government. In France for example every man and his dog hates Sarkozy and nobody admits voting for him, yet in the second round of the election he got over 53% of the vote, that’s about 19 million people. You would think you could find at least one of them
Mind you, being in opposition is a lot easier than being in government as the new PM is about to find out. When you are in opposition you can jaw about everything - a bit like me really - but you dont actually have to do anything. When you are head honcho you have to do or at east be seen to be doing. Talk is cheaper than action, but actions speak louder than any words.
Just for the record I don’t have any better idea of how democracy and government could be run, but I do know that I certainly would not want the job of being PM. In my view the fact that these people want the bloody job in the first place shows they are certifiable loons.
I just do not understand why anyone would want to have that amount of thankless grief and aggravation. Still at least you missus wouldn’t have to ask “Had a good day at work love” she will know before you get in because it will have been on the news all day.
Barking the lot of them.
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10/05/2010 by Uncle.
At last I have a few spare moments for my stumpy little digits to tap the key board.
I am sorry for the prolonged absence, but this has been due to a variety of bureaucratic and administrative processes not to mention a recuperation process which was not entirely trouble free.
In novels the hero man of action knows no legal boundaries and lives a buccaneer lifestyle. Alas the things of stories. The reality is that there are tax forms, insurance papers, employers obligations and a whole host of other bollocks to tie one down. In short I am surprised that in the modern western world anyone has time to go out and kill deal with anyone and thus earn an honest(ish) crust.
At the end of November I had to go and see our accountants - yes we have accountants, after all we are an honest business, well as honest as the average politician, and so we have accountants, lawyers and business advisers. These are not always happy meetings as they try to make head and tail of some of our “essential expenses”.
Accountant ” Uncle Norman, who is Mr Glock and why did you need to pay him X on Y occasions”, but my favourite was when they questioned why we had sexual services in France down as an expense.
“What sexual services in France are you on about?” I asked the chubby faced youth, He snorted and said rather pompously “There are a number of entries for Body Amour, I presume that this is some kind of massage parlour or is lingerie you bought for some lady”
“Amour? ” I said racking my brains “That’s body amour you tit, look at who issued the bills” He snorted again ” But even so, it is a lot of money and why did it need to be replaced?”, “Because there were bullet holes in it, is that a good enough reason?” Although I skipped over the bit that I don’t actually like wearing it and frequently don’t, which with hindsight, may not have been my wisest move at times. Still you live and learn.
Still at least he did not ask about Messrs, Heckler, Koch and Browning! or the payment to the Happy Ending Massage Parlour in Thailand. Tee hee.
Anyway It may not come as a shock that we have since sacked our accountants and have changed a lot of things following the “lets get your blood pressure up” session with them and my little accident.
So I had a lengthy meeting with our solicitors who echoed my own concerns that we were in danger of contravening a plethora of UK laws and regulations. I have made no secret of the fact that I am on very good terms with a number of police officers in Special Branch or whatever they call themselves these days as they come to see me regularly when they get wind of my being employed in what might be refereed to as “Sensitive locations”. Two of them had come to visit me just after I had been shot and expressed concern that I could be a sitting duck for some whizz kid trying to make a name for himself.
The legal beagle was also very concerned and agreed with the plods that as things stood I was rather bare arsed.
The problem is that although private investigators are not licensed in the UK yet almost every other aspect of the security industry is. The other thing is that the jobs we do are not quite within the remit of most other similar companies.
Thus I went to see our business advisers in Yorkshire who are very good.
My Trip to Yorkshire was very productive and at after 2 hours of no nonsense chat and a bill for almost £4K I had a new entirely legal corporate structure -outside the UK - which is totally legal but free of licensing requirements and can operate anywhere in the word without any problems and without the need for accountants. Money well spent in my opinion.
Of course we always keep books and accounts, you have to make sure you are actually making money, but hopefully that’s the end of stupid meetings and justifying paying Mr Glock.
Our law bidding friends in Parliament have kept me amused over the months. I like the term “expenses scandal”, when we really mean thieving and deception. As I have already said we have to justify everything but they have been at this caper for years without anyone blinking an eye. what is worse is The standard defence seems to be “I was only doing what everyone else did” - a defence which did not carry much weight at the Nuremberg War Trials, but that was few years ago and clearly in the UK we have come round to thinking that if everyone else was doing naughtiness then that makes it OK.
The last few weeks of course have been livened up (NOT) by the election. I regret to say that I am not overly impressed with any of them and the words “fat” and “fire” spring to mind. Do anyone of these plonkers actually know anything about real life and the problems faced by the rank and file. I doubt it, but it is funny listening to them telling us how they will make it better and that they will change this that and the other.
Yeah right, and I will get to the dance the naked horizontal mambo with Lady Gaga.
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