I can't sing

There is very little I can remember from my early school days.

I do remember there were two red brick buildings - the smaller one for the infants and the more imposing one for the juniors. They were separated by a playground.

I can remember my first day at school with my elder brother completely disowning me, despite reassurances from my mother that he would look after me.

The toilets were unheated and outside in the far corner of the playground. In fact, I'm pretty certain the urinal bit had no roof. This was a facility I spent an awful lot of time visiting due to an embarrassingly weak bladder. My Mum said it was just nerves.

I do remember an enormous flying bug coming through the classroom window when I was in the infants. It made the most evil noise and I nearly shat myself as it whizzed around the room. I now have good reason to believe it was a hornet.

There was a time when we (as a class) were ascending the massive, polished stone stairs in strict formation, and we passed a pile of vomit. The stench was enough to start my own bile on it's upwards journey only to be thwarted at the last second by some serious intervention by me.

I was chosen to be a pirate in an ambitious school production of The Pirates of Penzance, which fuelled a lifelong love of Gilbert and Sullivan.

I can recall a foreign girl in my class. I haven't a clue where she came from but she had a funny accent and was called something like Olga. And she was disposed to frequently peeing herself. She would often exit the classroom having left a puddle under her desk, and once, during PE, we all had to step over the piss on the floor.

And as I write this, I'm starting to remember more and more, which is fun, but not my intention. However, there was one event, so mind-blowingly crucial in my life, that I don't think it has ever been surpassed in it's ability to negatively effect my whole life.

I was about nine and a new headmaster had arrived. He was Welsh and had an unfortunate stammer. And he loved singing. He loved to hear the school sing, and 'singing' quickly replaced many of the more diverse activities within the school.

Striving for perfection from the singing throng of pupils, he once did a walk-by, pausing by each of us with his ear close to our mouths as we sung our hearts out. The 'spoilers' were quickly identified and the order given that the guilty few must always mime in future. And so I started a life time of miming. And as the implications of miming grew, my hatred for his cruelty has grown also.

He was right of course. I can't sing!

Okay, there are many other 'talents' I possess, but I just can't sing. I have since learnt this is something I have in common with the delicious Stephen Fry. He has written about his grief much more eloquently than I could ever achieve, but he summed it up perfectly when he said of his inability to sing, "You can't join in".

He's right, you can't join in! I've never been able to join in singing 'Happy Birthday', at funerals I'm unable to join in, at weddings, Christmas Carols, and the very thought of a Karaoke evening would induce me to throw myself under a bus rather than attend. And the worse thing is I love music. I can hear music note perfect in my head but vocal reproduction is impossible. Singing is a sociable event, and when there's singing, I'm unsociable.

Maybe if we hadn't had a change of Headmaster I wouldn't have spent my life miming the words. It wouldn't have made me a better singer but, just maybe, I might have felt able to join in once and a while...

It shouldn't be so unfair

The driving verses riding test becomes even more unfair today...

Today sees the introduction of Independent Driving/Riding, which means that the candidate will be asked to memorise a route and then follow it for 10 mins. The motorcycle candidate must be informed verbally - not via radio. This may add a significant time to the bike test with the examiner dismounting his machine and walking up to the rider to explain things. This could result in longer test times with consequentially less tests per day.

Also, as from today, the number of specific manoeuvres a car driver will be asked to perform will be halved - from 2 to 1. Bikers, with the introduction of the modular test last year, now have to perform 10 specific manoeuvres.

In addition to the above changes, the car driver has a 15 'driver faults' allowance (know colloquially as minors), whereas the biker only has an allowance of 10 on their road ride.

Since the introduction of the modular bike test, there are now 2 manouvres which are largly impossible to practice before test day - the car driver can practice everything he will be asked to do before the test.

There are significantly more car test centres than bike centres. Many riders need to ride over an hour to reach their test centre, only to be told they are not safe enough to ride a bike, and then they must ride the hour back home again.

The accident rate on test has soared for bikers, although the DSA seem reluctant to admit this. They appear to be in denial.

All this will see an increase in riders not taking a test and continuing to ride on 'L' plates without any check on their riding ability.

Anyone might think the government are attempting to drive bigger bikes off the road....

Head banging moment...

I love my job...

But like all jobs, there is always the proverbial 'fly-in-the-ointment', and with my job it is the Driving Standards Agency.

Although I am a self employed motorcycle instructor, the DSA firmly believe I work for them. Sure, they are responsible for driving & riding tests and all instructors must be approved by them (which makes sense) and there are some very decent and well-intentioned people working for them, but the agency itself has lost direction...

Some parts of the motorcycle test have now deteriorated into a farce - an extremely expensive (and, dare I say it, dangerous) farce, because the DSA have spent a small fortune on the implication of a new test and one part of that test (avoidance and controlled stop) is almost impossible to practice before the test. The test is so specific the only way to practice it is to use a test centre facility at the weekend, however, to be fair, the facility is hired out to instructors for free.

Okay, what's the problem there, I hear you ask. Well, the DSA never managed to build enough of these mega expensive test centres, which leaves many people with at least an hours ride to get to one - also, trying to book a practice session is akin to finding hen's teeth in a haystack.

But, four weeks ago I managed to book two x half hour practice slots for today. It was the first time I'd managed this feat.

I duly arrived with my two students and was greeted by a DSA-appointed official who acknowledge I had the two slots booked and I was then invited to 'sign in'.

And that was when the fun went out of the day because he needed to see my 'Card'. This is like a licence issued to trainers by the DSA, and (you've guessed it) I didn't have it with me. No one, not even the DSA, had bothered to mention I would need it. I knew my certificate number which was required on the form, but he insisted, "You could be anyone".

"Ask all these other instructors standing around. They know me!"

"Sorry" (and trust me, he did actually say these very words) "It's more than my jobs worth".

Having tried a few futile attempts to talk him around, we sidled away to consider our options - which were basically just one, to go away.

After a few minutes a couple of the other instructors came up to me. Word had obviously gotten around, and they wanted to use my precious slots.

"To use them, we must have your consent as the approved instructor who has booked the slots".

"But the little man over there doesn't believe I am that person!"

"Well, he said you must give your permission".

And maybe you can see why I titled this blog as I did. Had my logic suddenly desserted me, or was this an appropriate time to bang my head against the nearest wall?

Reflections

I feel like a quick recap on some of the things I might have commented on over the last 2 years - if I'd been blogging...

Russia turns off gas supply to Europe - No one saw that coming!

Barack Obama sworn in as 44th US President - A bit like Blair & Brown, no one could be worse than Bush.

Swine Flu officially declared a global pandemic - Did anyone really believe them? Well, politicians maybe.

Michael Jackson dies - Or did he???? Conspiracy theories abounded and the favourite was a faked death to escape his massive debts. How ridiculous - can anyone seriously believe that Jacko and Elvis could live together?

Barack Obama named as winner of Nobel Peace Prize 2009 - For what?

Windows 7 launched - I'm still on Vista but feel no ill effects so far.

Iceland have world's first lesbian head of government and then give us volcanic ash - There's something very odd about Iceland. This unpronounceable volcano displayed an unexpected reluctance to refrain from spewing ash into our atmosphere and the initial flight ban quickly became an obvious and embarrassing display of knee jerk overreaction.

BP spill oil into Gulf of Mexico - Oops.

Football World Cup held in South Africa - Best ever, and shows how we can hate and then learn to love something as irritating as the vuvuzela (bit like The X Factor)

Swine Flu pandemic officially declared over - Well, that was a relief...

Labour & Brown defeated - Hu-bloody-rah

Time flies

A surprise email appeared in my in-box this week... Someone had stumbled upon my Blog and, somehow, felt moved to make a comment, the message implored (too strong a word?) me to write some more.

Not wishing to disappoint my new found 'follower', I considered this option for about 30 seconds before realising I no longer felt grumpy - well, at least not as grumpy as I once was. That was before I escaped the clutches of employment and became the master of my own destiny... by becoming self employed.

And that was almost 2 years ago.

And then I reflected on my motivation to 'blog' in the first place - was it because I was grumpy, or maybe cynical, a pessimist, a realist, a sceptic, or perhaps simply someone who enjoys writing a few words for his own amusement? Or a time waster?

My wife would probably opt for the latter.

I think I just like to 'get things off my chest', and on reflection, there have been many occasions over the last 2 years when I've ranted at the TV or the radio when I could have opened my Blog and purged myself by writing a few words - had a giggle at the absurdity of it all - and moved on.

Well, maybe I'll do just that from now on....

X marks the spot

I've not watched The X Factor.

That's not strictly true, but on the rare occasions I have seen it, I'm horrified by the entire concept. These poor fools who believe that success in life is a once-only opportunity - and they believe this X Factor crap is that opportunity.

However, I stumbled on this...

I defy anyone with a soul not to fight back the tears when they watch it.

Apparently, this chap has gone on to be very successful. Quite right too.

Just fuck off Labour and leave us alone!

"1984 was not an Instruction Manual"

That really cool quote from Old Holborn has kick-started me again - and obviously the distress of Grumpy Young Biker who, apparently, misses my crap blogs.

Words cannot describe how much I hate this Government and yet, every day they manage to make me hate them a little bit more.

I've never voted for Labour in my life, but the last Tory Government had me almost believing that Blair and NuLabour might be better - no one could have dreamt how much worse they could be...

I shall bow to a much better Blogger than I (Old Holborn), who had this to say recently...

Government blog warning: Repeated exposure to non-Righteous blogs might result in secondary thinking.

"Today the woodwork has literally exploded with things crawling out of it. Our Righteous overlords have now demoted smokers from 'subhuman' to 'a target'. Once we were free men. Then we were numbers. Now we are one number, all of us, collectively. We are one number that must be reduced. We are to be exterminated. Because, as you anti-smokers smiling and clapping your hands at that statement believe, we are not human. We should be made to wear nicotine-coloured badges. Off to the camps with us. ASH has the Final Solution all dusted off and ready to go again. Ah, but will we be the only ones?

I'm getting all my tobacco overseas and paying no tax on it to this government. It's bad enough being dictated to by wriggling segmented things that ooze from the decaying panels of Westmonster bars (where they can still smoke), it's bad enough that non-smokers have the right to harass and abuse me in public and I have no right to respond, it's bad enough that the only thing that now counts as litter is a cigarette end, it's bad enough that even open spaces are denied me. It's worse that I will be denied the right to smoke in my own property where nobody else is present. I will not pay them to do this to me. No more tax.

I have a mobile phone. In fact, I have two. I paid cash because they weren't expensive enough to trouble a credit card. Both are pay as you go phones and since I hate talking on phones, a small top-up lasts for months. I am not a terrorist, even though I know far more about bacterial disease than anyone in the government would consider safe. I am not a criminal. The police have no record of me. Why, then, am I to be forced to register my phone as though I were some evil threat to all humanity? To stop terrorists?

Terrorists like those who leave their bins open. Terrorists like those who send their children to school. Terrorists like those who might have a friend over. Terrorists like the staff and customers of Icelandic banks. How many real terrorists have these laws caught? I'll be generous - you can include the research student who downloaded a copy of a terrorist manual because that's what his thesis was about. Yes, include him. He's the nearest you'll get.

The smoking laws, and the coming laws to prevent eating and drinking, are not about health. The carbon-footprint junk is not about the environment. The anti-terrorist laws have nothing to do with terrorists. They are about control of the population. They don't want us to stop smoking because 'it would be good for our health'. They want to condition us to do what we are told.

Those CCTV cameras, those phone taps, the bespectacled pinstripe anencephalic scanning the Internet (now pausing for a moment to look up 'anencephalic'), the Email logs, the DNA database, ID cards, none of those things have had nor will have the slightest effect on crime or terrorism. They are not meant to.

Criminals will fake ID cards. Criminals will steal the glass you were drinking from in the pub and leave it at a crime scene so it's your DNA that shows up. Criminals will steal your phone so when the crime comes to light, it's your door that gets kicked in at 3 am, not theirs. Criminals will fake your Email address and hack into your wireless network. Once more, your door gets the boot treatment.

These measures will not stop criminals. These measures are a godsend to criminals. Remember that gun ban? That told the criminals that nobody law-abiding had a gun so it was safe to burgle anywhere. Muggers loved the knife ban. DNA database? Perfect for framing a patsy. Tracked mobile phones? Perfect - steal one and your victim gets the blame. Email tracking? Spammers fake your Email all the time. They are still active, they have not been caught, so why would the criminal using your account be any different?

The measures are not intended to catch criminals. They are intended to create them. A whole raft of new prosecutions of people who thought they had nothing to hide and therefore nothing to fear. A whole slew of unsuspecting suckers who will wake to the 3 am boot-call. These saps will be fined heavily and then thrown out until the next milking time. You might well have nothing to hide. You certainly have something to fear.

Tame first, milk later. We are being domesticated by this government so they can pull us off the streets or haul us from our beds and take money from us under the pretext of ‘fines’. These fines are put in place on the pretext of ‘anti-terror laws’. The smoking ban, the attacks on the overweight and on those who like a drink, these are the softening-up approaches.

Do what you are told. Turn against the smoker, the drinker, the fatty, the driver. Shop your neighbour for throwing away too much. Turn in that litter lout. Denounce that man who walks past the school every day on his way to work. Threaten teachers with child abuse accusations which will finish their career and stay on file forever – even if proven untrue.

Tame that population. Keep them frightened. Make sure they can’t trust each other. Don’t let them learn too much. Change the rules about what is and is not offensive every few days. Riots? The laws are in place to deal with that already. Insisting on innocence? Double the penalty if they don’t confess straight away. They’ll get the message.

Nobody is innocent. The word of the Official is Law.

And then, when you are tamed, you can be milked. Increase the fines. Turn the screw.

And when there is no more milk… well, ask a dairy farmer what happens."

Olympic Flames

I just don't get it!

I hate waste. I hate polution. And I don't believe a word about Global Warming.

But what I can't get my head around is this massive Olympic Flame that burns for the whole duration of the competion. Isn't that a wanton waste of energy? Doesn't it cause a completely unnecessary dose of CO2 emissions to be unleashed into the already ailing Chinese atmosphere?

So where are all these self-righteous do-gooders when it comes to the flame?

I'll tell you where - they only spout bollocks when it suits them.

ps sorry for the break - I didn't feel very grumpy for a while.

The Siren's call

You know how some things really piss you off…

Well, I can’t stand all those audible warnings that assault us daily. I’m talking here about vehicle warning sounds. I’m talking about the absurd situation where any reasonably sized vehicle emits a verbal warning to announce it’s in reverse.

To think there was a time when drivers had responsibility not to reverse over someone, and pedestrians had a similar responsibility to see a 30ton truck backing towards them. First we had the beep–beep sound but this has been replaced by a recording of some jumped-up twat calmly announcing, “Stand well clear. This vehicle is reversing”, repeated in an endless loop.

Who is this supposed to help?

Most of us can see the bloody thing, and the only additional information for those with limited sight is that it’s a lorry moving backwards rather than forwards that will mow them down – and that’s only if they can speak English. Pointless health & safety bollocks made worse because it’s seriously annoying.

And, whilst I’m on the subject, I can’t stand Emergency Vehicle sirens either.

How did they get it so wrong?

The drivers of these vehicles have a range of sounds from which to choose, each one is, apparently, to describe the severity of the situation. Unfortunately, they haven’t let us know what they mean.

But the worse thing is – you just can’t tell which direction the vehicle is coming from.

Madness! Couldn’t they test these things before introduction, or is that an insanely sensible thing to do?

At the first hint of a siren, everyone within a mile radius drives along with their eyes glued to their rear-view mirror, occasionally daring to make glances at other drivers and shrugging their shoulders as if to say, “Have you any idea which direction it’s coming from – coz I haven’t a clue”.

And when it finally arrives, what chaos ensues.

The minority who finally capture a view of the vehicle in their mirrors feel rewarded. All that anxiety has been worth it. They are, indeed, the chosen ones.

Their destiny in life is now to perform a give-way manoeuvre with as much panic as they can muster. They will slow down and form a congested queue or stop on a blind bend or mount the pavement, scattering the momentarily deafened pedestrians. I’ve yet to see more than a couple of well-considered avoidance techniques. Most appear to hinder rather than help the oncoming vehicle.

There is a known phenomenon where an Emergency Vehicle constantly leaves a smattering of minor accidents in its wake.

And isn’t it remarkable how the most hardened road user, who wouldn’t normally give an inch of space to anyone in case they achieved the unheard of and managed to get in front of them, suddenly clambers all over the road furniture to allow room for an emergency vehicle.

Do you think it’s some form of soul-cleansing exercise?

If shoes could talk…

My best mate at work is Shirley.

She is my assistant, which loosely speaking, means she works for me, although my needs come way down at the bottom of the food chain if someone else needs some help from her. But that’s okay, her main contribution is to keep me sane in the ‘asylum’ we call work.

She makes me laugh, and that’s the greatest gift of all. And to be perfectly honest, she also nags me – but I accept that because I’ve grown to realise I’m the sort of person who invites that reaction. I must give the impression that my life is hopelessly beyond my control.

Sadly, she only works 2 days a week – and those days are not particularly well defined. That is to say, they’re defined well enough for Shirley, but I seldom know when I’m likely to see her again. Often, the phone rings on the morning I’m anticipating her welcome arrival, and it’s Shirley telling me the lady from the cat rescue home is coming round to ‘vet’ her suitability to adopt kittens, or some such valid reason for not making it in.

None of that’s a problem to me.

Anyway, today the phone rings and it’s her. “David, I’m in the car park and I’m stuck”.

Well, that’s a relief; at least she’s here…

“ I’ve got the heel of my shoe stuck in the dashboard, and I can’t get it out”.

Nothing about Shirley surprises me, but I struggled to anticipate the scene that would greet me as I made my way downstairs.

Indeed, her heel was stuck, but at a much reduced elevation than my mind had conjured up. It was stuck at floor level but seriously jammed into the centre console.

How she’d achieved this feat I’m not sure, but naturally, I released her. It had made my day. As I said, Shirley makes me laugh.