6 May 2017
My apologies for the delay in posting this week’s contribution. I cannot tell a lie. The blame all lies here:
Last night around 9.30pm she asked to go out. I issued strict instructions to be back within the hour and away she went. It was not until after 2.00am that her furry fizzog appeared at the door. I have rarely considered a visit to the taxidermist more seriously.
As you may be aware last Monday was a national UK bank holiday. A peculiarly British thing if ever there was one and something worth examining in more detail.
When I was young half the country would depart for the coast, spend hours in traffic jams, then on arrival sit on a windswept beach in a winter coat trying to protect an overpriced ice cream from the howling sandstorm and marauding gulls. If it rained you would not even get out the car. Sandwiches were eaten on the back seat. Small glimpses of the sea were snatched between each swish of the wipers and when not fending off the marauding dog. All the windows would eventually steam up due to the warm tea poured from a tartan flask and the breath from the starving hound. Then you would go home.
How times have changed! Two weeks prior to the big day the retailers started to bombarded us with offers. We could go to places we didn’t know were bereft in our absence, buy things we didn’t know we needed and above all we needed to cook outside.
“Do you feel incomplete this holiday weekend? Do your neighbours appear to be having a better time than you?
Get yourself a chimenea for the balcony of your 8th floor flat and feel a whole new level of contentment. While you won’t actually be able to light it, think how impressed your neighbours will be!”
Our local Asda Wallmart had a whole fridge dedicated to bank holiday lamb. Which is like normal lamb. Only special.
Some see the bank holiday as an opportunity to jump on a budget airline and go to one of Europe’s many culture capitals, then sit about drinking until they pass out. Their only contact with the medieval castle or ancient cathedral being to pee against it should they feel the need while in the vicinity. That’s assuming they haven’t started fighting before the plane has left the ground as happened down south last week.
I suspect most people did what we did. Absolutely nothing.
Personally I think bank holidays should either be banned or we should have them every Monday. Unable to cope with the sudden change in my work pattern, every document, time sheet or other record I have touched this week has been dated incorrectly.
Wednesday the excitement started early. There was no hot water first thing so I had to spend ten minutes outside in my night attire first berating then pleading with the militant boiler to coax it back into action. This meant I managed to leave late despite getting up early.
I got to the station to find my train was 15 minutes late due to it ‘Striking an object on the line’. I found myself hoping the ‘object’ was the man who designed my boiler. No longer able to live with the shame of creating such an-reliable piece of tat he had stepped out in front of the 6:50am to Aberdeen.
On the walk up to the office I was almost run over by a morbidly obese man racing down the bus lane then parking on the pavement right outside Starbucks so he could waddle in and get his £17 cup of oily bean juice.
The joy continued into Thursday when my car was in for it’s MOT and annual service. Not at the main dealer you understand. I prefer to use a local company that specialises in German cars. To illustrate why this is the case I would like to digress for a moment and share a widely reported story from 1989.
A company director took his Mercedes to the main dealer in Park Lane, London for a full service. Past dealings with the smarmy staff had suggested they were not as thorough as they should be, so he instructed an underling to loiter outside and observe what was done to the car. When the employee returned the answer turned out to be ‘not a lot’. A man in overalls had walked up to the car, polished each wing mirror, kicked the tyres and that was it. £900 please. Plus VAT.
My own experience was almost as shocking. The head mechanic phoned mid-morning. “Two small bits required for the MOT. Total cost for the parts will be about £25. Plus labour. Plus the service. It was only a small service this time. Plus VAT. Should be somewhere between £450 and £500.”
If it were not for the fact I have been using them for many years and believe them to be as honest as such people can be, I would have phoned the police and reported them for extortion. The final bill was £511. Haven’t slept properly since.
As I type the Domestic Manager (the wife) and Alice the offspring are down near Middlesbrough, the part of the world she calls home. Her sister is getting married next weekend and they are there for the last of many hen nights.
This gathering of the girls is the big one as it will be all the sisters at once. The child has taken her books. The DM has her dress, heels, make-up etc etc. Their preparation tells its own story. I expect the DM will not be well on Sunday, something Alice will not let her forget in a hurry.
There was talk of hiring a Butler in the Buff to serve them drinks first thing. For £100 you a ‘hunky guy in a very short apron’ for an hour. Classy.
Wonder if there is a market for a Bloater in a Boater? I might be quids in! £25 an hour or part thereof. Certainly no danger of being sued under the trades description act.
To finish two more things to share. I have a friend in Edinburgh. Let’s call her Kimberley. In a perfect world she would be Mrs David Coverdale, wife of the lead singer of 80’s mega-band Whitesnake. ‘Here I go again on my own’ was their big one. As this is not a perfect world she contents herself by following him on twitter instead. A few days ago David posted this. Sad. Yet funny.
Finally two quotes from my favourite tomb:
The Dictionary of Business Bullshit by Kevin Duncan was a gift from a former boss who used to take great pleasure in telling me how she was going to get her ‘Ducks in a row’ and harvest the ‘Low hanging fruit’. Just typing the words makes me feel nauseous.
EDITDA: 1. Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. 2. Any fabricated figure that makes it look as though profits are healthy, regardless of the range of skeletons in the cupboard.
No-brainer: 1. Decision that is a foregone conclusion; requiring no thought. 2. Decision that probably does require more thought; hasty default for small-minded executives who may indeed have no brain; impetuous decision, often regretted later, as in “It’s a no-brainer guys!”, followed by the spectacular failure of the product or service.
Murrays Musings 