Dealing with Idiots

Bloomin' heck! It's been a while hasn't it? I'm obviously getting lazy at this blogging lark.

Well actually, that's not quite true. I've been too busy dealing with complete muppets, most of whom tend to be working in some sort of "public service" capacity.

The most recent of which are the DVLA.

Given that I haven't been on here for a while, I best explain that my dealings with the DVLA are bourne from the purchase of a new vehicle. Despite the doom and gloom predictions of the "credit crunch", I was still easily able to find a well-known bank stupid enough to lend me a big bag of money in order to purchase said "wheels", a 1.6t Astra Sport Hatch SRI - and very nice it is too:


Now as anyone familiar with the car buying process will be aware, the dealers are more than happy for you to drive around whilst the DVLA, the body responsible for registering ever car and driver in the UK, are completely oblivious to the fact. Instead, they eventually get round to posting the logbook to some industrial park in Swansea where it spends the next three months in somebody's "pending" tray.

Apparently, some disgruntled motorist tried sending a letter bomb to the DVLA although quite how they found out I've no idea. By the time any envelope managed to work its way through their "high speed processing system", any traces of dynamite, TNT or anthrax would have long-since died off. They probably even set the same envelope back to the bomber, given that he probably used the wrong colour pen or something.

Eventually, you get a copy of the logbook, indicating that the DVLA recognise you as the new owner and that any speeding / parking tickets will have your name on them, even, as in my case, your name is misspelled.

OK, so the misspelling may have been the dealers fault and to be quite honest, they are currently on my feckwit list given that they lost the spare key, but that's not the point.

Having sent the logbook back to be corrected, it arrived this morning - again misspelled - with the same misspelling.

Quite why the processing minion at the DVLA thought that sent the document back in the first place I've no idea, they didn't explain but that's probably because they are completely useless.

I thought I escaped all of this shit when I packed in customer service.....

On Strike

Today I became yet another victim of French engineering and the tendency for all things from the across the channel, be they internal combustion engines or air traffic controllers, to go on strike without warning.


The gearbox on my faithful Citroen Saxo seems to feel under-valued and unloved and is refusing to work until I throw a considerable amount of money at it and even then, it may not return to action.

Which is bad news on several counts.

It means that my "new car fund" won't be seeing any growth this month and it means that my already-poorly Mastercard isn't going to get much rest either.

But it gets worse than that. It also means (and I can barely bring myself to contemplate it), I'll be having to use public transport for a few days at least!

I know these problems can happen with any vehicle, but I'm annoyed and nobody is going to stop me angrily waving my fist in the direction of the English channel.

Did I misplace a washer?

On Monday, Leeds ground to a complete halt as a burst watermain closed off the busiest part of the busiest road in the city.




I was going to write something about it, but Jerry Chicken is much more on-the-ball on a morning than I am and I just couldn't bring myself to plagerise all his hard work, so I'll just link to it instead.

Although that Michael bloke he talks about seems to be a smart chap. I propose that they put him in a position of power somewhere.

You've got a friend

If there's one thing that makes you a proper bloke, then changing a flat tyre in the rain is surely up there.


The deluge that hit Yorkshire yesterday didn't make for a pleasant evening on the pop but nevertheless, we ventured up to Headingley where we would watch whatever rugby match was on the TV (Wigan v Catalans as it was) before heading into town.

Now the four Bramley lads all jumped in a taxi and each argued with each other over how much we each owed to pay the driver the £6 fare - the done thing in these parts.

Now our mate Stephen on the other hand, lives in Pudsey and so decided to get a lift up from his mum who refused to drive him anywhere until Coronation Street had finished.

Now before we go any further, please bear in mind that our mate Stephen is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Bright enough guy that he is, it's fair to say that he lacks a few 'life skills'. It is also worth noting that our mate Stephen will do absolutely anything to get out of buying a round.
Got that? Good, we can continue.

So Stephen meets us in the Skyrack and heads to the bar, unusually, without being prompted. As he's there, the phone stats ringing. The wallet soon goes back in the wallet and he heads outside - his mum has got a flat tyre, or so he tells us.

A few minutes later, my phone starts ringing.
"My mum's got a flat tyre"
"How bad is it"
"Errrm"
"Could you get it to a petrol station"
"Errrm.... can you come and have look"

Now at this point, my drinking buddies thought I was mad but like good mates and proper blokes, undeterred by the monsoon outside, two of us set out to help a friend in need, under the firm belief that such an act of kindness would result in a few free 'taxi rides' in the near future.

We arrived on scene to our mate Stephen standing around on St Michael's Road looking like a drowned rat whilst his mum sat in the car with the heating on.

The tyre was almost destroyed but unfortunately, Stephen looked at me expecting to impart some good news like "it'll get you a a garage" or something equally optimistic. There was no chance. In the wall of the tyre was a hole the size of a ten pence piece and it turns out that she hit the curb at some point. My mate Oli (who had joined me to assess the situation and assist with the tyre replacement) put on his best 'dodgy car mechanic' impersonation and told him " yep, there's yer problem". "Oh, I didn't notice that" he said worryingly.

It was an unpleasant experience, the rain was unrelenting, it was getting dark, a stream was racing down St Michael's Road and we were more dressed for going to fancy bars than for fixing car. But like the good people that we were, we had to help our friend and so we did.......






... we told him to phone the AA and then went back to the pub.


This was about 8:30. He then met us in a city centre bar at about 11:00pm.

Let's have a debate

Transport Minister Douglas Alexander has today decided that we need a 'debate' on the proposed idea of road charging.




The idea is simple: Every car in the UK will have a tracking device. It will know what roads you drive on, when you drive on them and, it will know how fast you are going.
You are then sent a bill every month based on the mileage you do in that month. The 'clever' bit though is that you will pay more per mile for using congested roads at congested times. Drive down a country lane a 2:00am on Sunday morning and you'll pay about 4 pence a mile. Drive on the M621 at 8:30am on Monday morning and you'll pay £1.40 for sitting in traffic.

OK it's not a simple idea at all, it's a stupidly complicated idea and most of the revenue will be lost in administration costs, but our glorious leaders think that it will cut congestion and fix the hole in the o-zone layer.

Now quite what Douglas Alexander thinks he'll achieve by having this 'debate' I'm not entirely sure. Call me naive, I'd say that having more than one million signatures on a Downing Street petition against the idea is probably enough to gauge public opinion.

You could argue that the whole idea is a non-issue anyway. I mean with 14m motorists in the UK, no political party in their right mind would alienate about 50% of the electorate. That assumes our political party leaders are in a fit state of mind however.

Road charging isn't that uncommon already. Most major river crossings are now toll roads, the imaginatively named M6Toll is one as is all of Central London. We've got two in Yorkshire, the well-known Humber Bridge, which costs £2.60 to use, and the not very well known Aldwark Bridge, which costs bugger all because nobody knows where Aldwark is.

The most likely way of charging motorists to use the roads will eventually be congestion charges like those in London and Leeds has got that covered as well, or at least, we used to.

As part of the "Supertram deal", Leeds put itself forward to pilot the trial for congestion charges. As a result cameras and detecting equipment was erected on all major routes in South Leeds, tracking every number plate that entered the city with volunteer vehicles also having RFID sensors fitted in them.
Whilst it was merely a trail, HM tax collector could easily start sending out bills to West Yorkshire's motorists, just with the flick of a switch.
Anyway, when the Supertram idea was chucked in the waste paper bin and when the council realised that about £45m had been wasted, the cameras came down in a defiant two-fingered salute back to Westminster.

Of course, I could all go on about how road charging wouldn't be so bad if we all had an alternative to driving but I don't want to be responsible for blocking the blogger server.