Me

Nothing does battle like a man scored by the postal service. A parcel arrived for me today, well, it didn’t really, a little card telling me there was a parcel at the sorting office arrived for me today. The parcel was addressed to my dad (because I use his credit card to pay for it). If I had been standing at the front door when the postman came to deliver it he would have allowed me to sign for it. As it happened, I was not standing at the door, by some miracle I was out. When I went to the post office they informed me that I could not pick up the parcel, I needed my dad to pick it up or I needed him to sign the bit of card. At the moment I am fuming. I am just about to go onto their site to start a formal complaint because one way or another they are wrong.

If the person who the item is addressed to is not there and they allow me to sign for it then that is fine. However at the sorting office they contradict this. That means either the postman or the sorting office are wrong. I don’t give a shit which one it is, I want them to be consistent. I know for a fact that my 11 year old brother has signed for things that are addressed to me. Suddenly him standing on the doorstep makes him more a member of the family than me standing at the sorting office with the card only to be found in our house, with photo ID that proves my address to be the same.

I don’t need my parcel for just under a week, but I don’t give a shit, I don’t want it in their grubby hands any longer than necessary. It most certainly isn’t necessary for them to hold it now.

Action surpasses information. That was the valuable lesson learnt yesterday evening during the Mission Impossible 3 film. The film was fairly stunning, but like so many films at current the director had opted to shoot much of it using handheld cameras to make the viewer feel more “involved”. The effect is impressive, if not a little annoying. It gives the impression of being there, but I don’t want to be there, I want to know what’s going on. You really need to keep your eyes open the whole time during any action sequence. I’m sure its just a fad and it will pass.

Speaking of action, the last few days have filled with a few spots that would make your hardcore car spotter wet themselves with glee. On Wednesdays I saw a £400k Koenigsegg going the other way down the road. On Thursday I then saw a Ford GT which I think they only made about 40 of and is the same car Jeremy Clarkson has (although it wasn’t his). The final one on the list was then on Friday, whilst walking back from the train station I saw a stretched Hummer H2, which is rare to say the least. It looked just like this one.

Of course spotting cars is not all I have done all week, but it is the most interesting for the most part. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I have had exams, and I have a further 2 next week to complete the set. I did however take a little break from work (well, a longer than normal break) to go visit down in Brighton.

It was during that visit he informed me that I should be putting a post with his photo meme in it. So here goes:

Photo Meme: Tell me up to three things you want me to take a picture of and I’ll post them in my journal.

In the last few years I have come to realise several things. These are not big things, but nor should they be considered small. I consider myself to be relatively well off (socially, and to an extent financially) and come not from distinguished circles, but more the top end of middle class. Now I know using the mentioning of the class system is not the “done thing” in our modern, “equal” society, so perhaps I should better define that.

The vast majority of my friends are well educated, coming from good solid homes with equally well educated and cultured parents. Their parents come from a time when the class system was more integral in the world with such distinguishments as the 11+ exam here in the UK. This exam allowed them to further their education and almost certainly (although not exclusively) go to university. This would have been when approximately 5% of their age group would have gone. Now although the exam for the most part is gone, these children, my friends, have inherited this elevated start financially and culturally.

The reason I say I have realised these things is the last few years is because it was not until then that I truly began to see the stark contrast between my own way of living and what you could call the “norm for the masses”.

This stark contrast was brought into much sharper focus when Channel 4’s big brother came on to TV. Although the original concept and even the first few incarnations of the program were very original and did make for an interesting “fly on the wall” view into how some people worked, this good start was soon compromised with such fickleties as prospective fame taking over the show. The current series of big brother does nothing more than illustrate people’s grotesque lust for fame.

I remember several years ago when the 3rd or 4th big brother was running and I took part in a “discussion” with other members of my year group in something entitled “where do you stand?”. The format was truly wonderful and something I enjoyed very much. We had a large room with a table in the middle and a member of staff stood on that table with a list of statements in his hands. When a statement was read aloud you had to stand close to the table if you agreed with the statement and far away if you disagreed. Obviously people were then left to make up their mind to what extent they agreed or disagreed and stood in the corresponding place. The member of staff then proceeded to quiz people about why they had stood where they had and during those 4 or 5 questions people would shift about if they so felt the need upon the back of someone’s response. One of the statements put forward was “The television show big brother has been going on too long”. Within 30seconds there was the best part of 100 students are as close to the table as they could.

This was 4 years ago and still this tedium is on our television screens.

You can see peoples interest in worthless, fake celebrities all the time. All you need do is pick up a tabloid newspaper and look at the first 10 pages of pictures. No one in there is special, interesting, funny or even for the most part, intelligent. Yet for some reason so many people follow their every move with the up most interest. How sad and meaningless is your life if you need to read about people who’s only attribute (bar anorexia) is fame.

For a race of beings with so few tasks to complete we are pretty crap at them really. I don’t know about you but I hate dealing with taxes, and it seems, so do those who’s job is to help me sort mine out. Then there is Death, well having learnt that my granddad is going into hospital tonight (and it’s extremely unlikely that he will come out) I’m not even sure how I feel. I can tell you for one thing it isn’t happy. I just went outside to play badminton against the wall (hit it hard and bounce it back) and have had to come in because I broke it.

Thinking about it, another thing we have to do is work. Now the fact that there is a word such as “procrastinating” shows that’s not a strong point of that many. Oh, I guess there is breeding, I suppose the Chinese light the way with that one, but even so, how many infertility clinics, family planning centres, drugs, IVF rooms etc do we need, we must be hashing it up along the way there too.

I’m not in a good mood.

It’s always nice to know that the world hates you. I have been finding that the world hates me rather more than I first thought.

You may or may not remember that I have been having a little trouble with my badminton racquet over the last month or so.

First, I broke my old workhorse which served me well, but alas, it’s time came. I accepted that quite well since I knew it was coming. Then I got a new racquet, all very nice, worked well etc. A few weeks later the string broke! To say the least I was irked by this. Being the good little soldier I am, off I went and had it re-strung (at the cost of £15) in Brighton on Friday. I combined this with a visit to Thomas and a bit of shopping. You see, at this time I was feeling quite flush with money. I bought a 512MB SD card for my camera and a card reader too. They were planned purchases and this seemed like a good time to get them. Strike while the iron was hot and all that. Apart from anything else, I didn’t know how long it would be before I would be feeling broke again. The time came a little sooner than I thought. I went to badminton that evening and as with the previous week, something broke. Now you would have though the string would have broken, that being the bit that was 6 hours old. Oh no, the world hates me much more than that. I snapped the racquet in two places. As you will see from these pictures, it’s looking rather buggered. So today, I have been to Brighton again. I now have another one. I haven’t even taken it out of its bag for fear of breaking it. Next weeks badminton should be interesting….

In other news…no wait, that can’t be…don’t be silly Craig, you don’t have any news….

Ah, actually, as sceptical as I’m being, I do!

Today being 1st of April I played a little joke. Actually, I’m over ratting it. It wasn’t a joke, not even a prank really. I think it would be best described as just me using the date as a good excuse for pissing people off.

Jonners, (who I go halves on web hosting with) has a blog. His blog gets viewed lots. Today it wasn’t viewed much at all. It may have something to do with it looking like this….