The Grumpy Old Blog

January Three days into the year and all your New Year resolutions are broken already. After all the celebratory food and drink, secretly you are happy that it's International Coffee Gourmet Month, although the thought of all those TV celebrity chefs makes you want to go back to bed.Or at the very least, feel rather sick. Partners buy their spouses some wonderful clothes in the winter sales which they spend all evening putting on e-bay. Easter Eggs are in the shops. The twist-off bottle cap was invented on the last day in January 1956. You celebrate by spraining your wrist trying to open one. Google, Amazon, Apple and Starbucks to pay tax. Oh! No they don’t. The Christmas Turkey leftovers are finally finished. February You must remember to send Alice Cooper a birthday card on the 4th February. Surely something should be growing in that patch where you planted bulbs last October. Easter Eggs are still in the shops. You spend the entire last week of t...

Having just ‘done’ the "Gatwick thing" a few days ago en route to Barcelona, I am convinced that airport security is a connivance. The requirement to turn up at the airport seven hours in advance to book in is a total sham and a complete waste of time and passengers' money. I am convinced that the airlines, passport control, border agency and G4S security chumps are on the W H Smith payroll, hence the reason we have to turn up so early for our flight. And the reason I say this is - have you seen the altogether mighty creative prices at WH Smith? The humble bag of crisps is now 99p! Yes, the 1970's equivalent price of a week's petrol. 60p short of the cost seeing The Electric Light Orchestra in concert. Or the cost of three pints of beer. 99p for 50g of pure, salty cholesterol, and not even the equivalent of one reasonably sized potato contained therein! And as for sandwiches - nearly £4 for two slices of bread with some slop wedged between. And 85p for a...

I am very curious as to how easyjet can hedge their jet fuel purchases to provide stable prices for passenger fares right up to possibly mid 2014 (yes, 2014). This, bearing in mind their fuel often originates from mad, despotic countries ruled by nutters, not perhaps the best atmosphere to try and lock down prices from. However, Angela Knight, the chief "makey-upperer" from Energy UK, has issued a warning via a laborious interview on the Today programme [where she failed to answer even one direct question, ending up sounding like a tape-loop impression – and a pretty weak and hackneyed one at that]. She thinks (well she would do at the salary she’s pulling in from those energy sharks) that the government's proposals on reducing the energy customer-robbing suppliers totally confusing tariffs won’t work. By reducing them to just four relatively easy ones to get on with, she says this could mean the end of some of the cheap deals currently on offer! (I have no doubt th...

That famous line - what have the Romans ever for us? - from the hilarious activists' (Reg and the lads) scene in the wonderfully funny "Life of Brian" film is concluded with: "All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us ? And so it has been throughout history. People disaffected with their society form their own little groupings in protest, sometimes to just sit around and complain verbally, others to take a more direct action. Whether social, political, military or even terrorist. All have their own little agenda, some, far more legitimate than others, whether for a genuine cause in protest, simply as an easier route to making money than entering gainful employment, or to ultimately be awarded in the Queen’s Honours. Some leave behind a legacy that enters the history books as a landmark -...

As you have probably read, judging by the rubbish I write, I do all my own blogging! I use it as a sounding off board to shout about things that make me smile, seethe or just totally see heart-attack red (the latter usually brought on by reading of useless Z-celebrities and the totally untalented X-Factor contestants who incessantly fill newspapers. Oh and bloody supermodels who aren’t the slightest bit super [not one of them is], just overpaid clothes horses, and companies that use the totally incorrect and nonsensical “pre-order” and “pre-owned”). However, I am actually amazed by the number of advertisements on the freelance job web pages I see, such as that illustrated below: Experienced Guest post writers needed urgently! Quality matters Posts to be completely original Relevant to the theme/niche of our client's web site and the host blog 500 words or longer Including one or two copyright free images you will source Use a different pen name for each post ...

There is a wonderful browser plugin that lets you reduce the rubbish as well as hiding stuff you don’t want to see on your facebook page. They (facebook) are plainly not happy about it, and yes, we use facebook for free, but tough. The timeline is appalling and the rubbish about X-list celebrities, wastrel reality show contestants and the peurile games people play on their iPhone or on facebook are of absolutely no interest to me. Go to http://www.fbpurity.com/install.htm where you will find the plugin for various different browsers. I have only been using it it for a few days but it does seem to do an excellent job of letting you manage what you want to see and more importantly what you don’t want to see. Some nice things it does includes setting the timeline to one, centred column and setting your default page to view "most recent" stories first rather than "most popular". It also can do away with the awful "trending" that nearly always take...

It has long been said that Britain is the mother of modern day politics, law and order. No doubt the burglar Judge Peter Bowers recently cited as courageous would agree.  Yes, Britain is the mother of modern day politics, law and order. Which probably explains why judges and barristers dress like berks in their grey wigs and schoolmaster gowns, over paid for essentially just being book-clever and on a par with HR directors when it comes to total stupidity and total lack of respect for the public they serve. That is not to say there aren't some extremely good legal eagles out there. If the normal person can afford them that is! Mr Justice Eady is another one. Regularly making the hallowed pages of the satirical magazine Private Eye virtually every other issue for judgements he makes that are just unbelievable. One of his recent wheezes, the "contra mundum" is in essence a worldwide ban forever about an individual's private life. And then if you remember back ...

A message from customer Service sbc.settlement@gmail.com. Standard Chartered Bank Third Floor. PO Box 788, Accra High Street Building Accra Tel/Fax:233 540969397 Dear value Customer, I am Mrs. Felicia Peace (Head of Customer Service) Standard Chartered Bank. We received instruction from our financial authorities and IMF office to remit the compensation sum of $2.9m to you. While we are processing your payment file, it was discovered that your fund beneficiary name has been changed and replaced. The bank's remittance director has ordered that we stop the payment until we get a mandate from you authenticating this change. If you are aware of this development, please kindly give the name but if not please furnish us with the following information to enable verify and update our data here before subsequent processing and transfer of your fund. 1 Your full name: 2 Your present contact address: 3 Your telephone & Fax numbers: 4 Your Occu...