A Few More of Life's Irritations

Come on, you say, how on earth can there be any MORE irritations? What's wrong with you man? Get a grip. But it's true, I can find a few more annoyances and irritations, and more that drive me stark-staring nuts.

What is it with the layout of carparks? Why do the idiots who decide how you drive around them have to make it so illogical. I'll give you an instance. I am driving to Milton Keynes Hospital every day to visit Carol on Ward 20. I park in the multi-storey carpark I could use the ground level one, but it's a long walk around the hospital site to the new entrance. (I'll come back to the irritation of having to walk around to where the new entrance is when it used to be dead opposite the carpark, but I'll skip it for now.) Driving in to the carpark they have got two barriers, where you have to stop to take a ticket out of the machine. So, if there are two cars side by side at the barrier and one driver gets their ticket from their machine first, it's like the start of a Grand Prix as you put your foot down on the accelerator so you can get a parking place before the other cars gets there first. But it's really the layout of the carpark which causes the annoyances with me. You have to drive round and then find some areas, for no good reason known to man, that are out of bounds. You have to make a complete circuit of the carpark in order to drive out when you leave, and at the exit have to be extremely dextrous with your driving in order to avoid hitting any of the barriers and low bits of concrete edging, a really crazy way to design an exit. No doubt some bureaucrat in an office in Whitehall, doodling on the back of an envelope, with absolutely no idea of the frustration and havoc caused by his ignorant carpark design. 

I had to park in the carpark again at the weekend. I can get free parking as Carol is a cancer patient, by going into Macmillan's unit, which is on the floor below Ward 20, and get my parking ticket stamped which allows me to exit the carpark without further payment. But on Sunday, when I left (unfortunately you have to pay, even as the relation of a cancer patient, because Macmillan isn't open over the weekend.) But on leaving, even though I'd payed at the machine, where you have to put your ticket in the machine and it shows on the digital screen how much you have to pay, which was £4.50, by the time I got in the car and drove out of the multi-storey carpark, for whatever reason, the barrier was raised, which meant I could leave without putting the ticket into the slot in the machine which raises the barrier (if after all this you are still with me, as it's far to complicated to describe. Sorry if I lost you throughout all that.) So, you can imagine how annoyed I was about the fact that I had spent £4.50 on parking and then being able to be released from the carpark with the barrier raised (I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps the system was out of order. Which was all very well and good, but if that was the case, why was there no notice on the ticket machine to say you didn't have to pay? I bet there were a lot of other people using the carpark who were as annoyed as I was regarding this matter. 

Anyway, the following day I decided, once I'd parked in the multi storey carpark, to take my ticket to the little office which is within the carpark and demand a refund of my £4.50. When I asked the man who was in the office, he politely refused to refund me. WHY I wanted to know, curtly, but I must add, politely (as I try to be polite, even when I'm annoyed, which can be very difficult at times, particularly when faced with such bare-faced jobsworthishness (now THERE'S a new word!) But he was. He could easily have said 'I'm so sorry, sir. Here's your refund. I'm sorry you've been inconvenienced!' But no! Perhaps he'd got out of the wrong side of his bed, or some such disagreeable matter to make him so uncharitable to me. But in all this, you will agree that it was yet another of life's irritations. I think, if Victor Meldrew had been involved in this incident, that grumpy git character played by Richard Wilson in the BBC sitcom 'One Foot In The Grave,' he would be bound to utter his famous catchphrase 'I don't believe it!!!'

Later.

Continuing on from what I've written regarding the parking at Milton Keynes hospital, and my experiences with the ticket I paid for on Sunday and the fact that once I'd payed the £4.50 to be able to get the barrier to raise to let me out and then finding it raised, the same thing happened today. I walked past a queue of people as I went into the carpark, as they were paying their money to also become released. As I walked into the carpark I saw that the barriers were raised. I did attempt to tell people they were wasting there hard-earned cash by putting it into the wretched machine, regardless of the fact that the barriers were raised. Will someone tell me why nobody had the sense to put a notice on this machine to the effect that this was unnecessary? This whole thing is a scandal and a good way to make money.

Grumpy Kleeneze Man

I had to write this on a post. I decided on Monday morning to have a bath. As one does. The house is empty. It's quiet. Nice to have a nice hot bath. We got some nice bath foam in Sainsbury's the other day. It take quite a while for the bath to fill up as the gas boiler only runs when you turn the hot tap on. A relatively ancient system. You have to run the hot tap for a minute or two before it runs hot and then hot enough for a relatively warm bath and some time before the water-level is high enough before I actually get in. 

A couple of days ago we had the latest Kleeneze catalogue shoved through the door. I didn't bother to look at it, because, to be honest, I can't see the point of ordering anything as most of what they sell you can buy elsewhere, such as Asda, Sainsbury or Tesco (or any number of similar outlets.) and they also have a website so if I was desperate for a gadget to catch spiders in, or a thing for de-fluffing the stair carpet or getting the dust out from behind  a radiator with a special brush, I might be inclined to by it on-line or go to a shop to buy such an item. Not that over-awed by their stuff at the best of times so why bother. I know if you get these confounded catalogues you have no choice but to put them outside where the agent can retrieve them when they call back. Not as if the things are actually wanted. Just another load of stuff that gets shoved through the letter box along with leaflets for pizza deliveries, estate agencies telling you they can sell your house or double-glazing companies. So, I had it ready where I could find it for when the agent came back and was likely to knock on the door and demand the thing, so it's a good idea to have it where you can find it and not be looking around to retrieve the confounded thing. 

Well, to get to the point of the story and the connection with my bath . . .  . cut to the chase and so on . . . I was waiting incidentally for a parcel to arrive from Amazon. Carol had ordered a book on teaching psychology or something and so it was actually quite an important parcel so I was keeping one ear open, as they say, for the merry knock on the door by an employee of Royal Mail. So, as I settled down to have a rather pleasant soak in the bath, there was a somewhat angry-sounding knock on the door. At first I just ignored it, but when it was heard again I had no option but to respond. It would mean getting out of the bath and drying myself and then finding my clothes and then going downstairs to answer the door. So, instead, I made the decision to get out of the bath and open the window and calling down to the, as yet, unseen person at the door.  Well, I had no clothes on (!) but my modesty was well hidden as I lent out of the open window. As I peered out I couldn't see directly below the window as there is a porch which has a roof which hid the person below. I shouted down, believing the person pounding on the door to be a postman, as I expected the Amazon parcel to be in the process of being delivered and that the postman wanted to hand it over as it was unlikely to fit through the letter-box. So I said 'can you put it in the bin-cupboard?' which is immediately next to the front door and the usual place for items which won't fit through the letter-box if we are out when they arrive. But it wasn't the postman. Instead, a face turned up to me, of a somewhat grumpy gentleman who was obviously a Kleeneze agent. He shouted 'leave the catalogue out for me by Thursday!' and walked off in something of a huff. Not exactly the sort of customer-service I would expect from someone I was likely to buy something off. More likely put me off and not bother. So I completed my bath, the still and peace of the morning somewhat ruined by a grumpy old git.

This whole episode puts me in mind of the B.B.C. Television sitcom "One Foot In The Grave" as the grumpy old Kleeneze man makes me think of the character in it played by Richard Wilson, Victor Meldew, who was just as grumpy and bad-tempered as the man I had the misfortune to come into contact on the occasion of that morning a few days ago.

I have now put the wretched Kleeneze catalogue out on the doorstep. It is in a plastic bag which is supposed to keep it dry if left out in the rain. It is there for grumpy old man to collect when he returns on Thursday. Sorry to say, if he treats all his customers in the same way as me he won't get many sales. Actually, next time one of their catalogues is thrust through the letter box I think I'm more inclined to throw it out with the recycling as it has put me off Kleeneze altogether. I shall now make a point of NOT buying anything from the aforementioned Kleeneze catalogue if and indeed, when, it is shoved through our letterbox. The stuff inside it is generally not up to much anyway, and certainly if he man who runs the thing in this area is so rude and bloody-minded he can keep his rubbishy catalogue and all it contains if all he's going to be is miserable and grumpy.

Fine And Sunny

Well, wouldn't you believe it? Well, perhaps you would, there again, perhaps you wouldn't. After yesterday's washed-out Bank Holiday Monday, today is fine and sunny! It had to rain, as it was a Bank Holiday. The classic sort of day, stuck in a traffic jam somewhere, miles from anywhere, over-priced food, sandwiches, petrol prices increasing JUST as the holiday approaches, nowhere to park, and when you get there, nowhere to get a decent cup of tea, everywhere runs out of icecream, screaming kids, miserable weather, queues a mile long to get into tourist attractions, for example Alton Towers, Warwick Castle, Keswick, Southwold, or any other seaside resort. Think of the classic episode of 'One Foot In The Grave' with Victor Meldrew and his wife Elizabeth and their friend Mrs Warboys, stuck in a traffic jam and Victor moaning on, going nowhere, stuck in the car, on a Bank Holiday. One of the best episodes of the sitcom.

Anyway, as I was saying, it has to be sunny on the day AFTER  a Bank Holiday, and particularly one where it's been so wet and miserable. And, please, can someone explain why the banks should deserve a holiday, after the total mess they've caused the country with the so-called 'Credit Crunch.' Would it be better if they had a couple of days extra work where they put back some of the money they've taken off the innocent tax-payer since we've given them the money in the first place?