Great Cons of Britain Pt 3 - Talent Contests

Whilst some busy-bodies are still finding out the great icons of our fair land, we continue our quest to find the all-time great cons of Britain. This time, we look at talent contests.

TV standards in this country seem to have dropped dramatically over the past few years. Cynics would argue that they couldn’t drop much further anyway, but nevertheless, despite having 2000 more channels, we still can’t find anything decent to watch.
That’s mainly due to a few things. Firstly, ITV are skint. Secondly, the BBC are skint and Thirdly, Sky is run by an Aussie.

That said, ITV heralded Simon Cowell and Co as the saviours of their network. Cowell and his cronies, which consisted of Dr Fox (who isn’t a Doctor) and some woman whose name escapes me, kicked-off a new talent show called Pop Idol, where your average bloke off the street came in, sang a song and as long as they was good enough, they got the chance of a multi-million recording contract.
After the hilarities of he opening rounds, where every cretin in the country warbled at the panel, so that Cowell could lay into them with his infamous put-downs, we were down to the nitty gritty with people who, to be fair, had a bit of a voice on them.

In the end, the country was gripped as Will Young, from somewhere down South and Gareth Gates from Bradford battled it out in the live final and sang for the votes of the British public. It was a fairly close thing in the end and even the bookies couldn’t split them. Will Young was arguably the better singer, whilst the stammering Gareth easily had the sympathy vote because of his speech impediment. Gareth, who was proclaimed as the best thing to come out of Bradford since the A647, eventually lost although he did manage to get a record deal.

And therein lays the con.

These votes cost upwards of £1 a minute. All the while, the shows costs are covered by millions in sponsorship money. After that, the un-audited winner is announced before heading of to the recording studio.
After that, every runner-up is all of a sudden appearing on ‘Top-of-the Pops’ with their cover version of some 80’s classic.

These TV execs know exactly who’s getting the contracts before a note is sung, yet the idiots keep in voting, and voting, and voting. Yet further proof that the British public is completely stupid.

Come to think of it, after al these contests, only two have actually made anything of their careers. Will Young being one, the other being Lemar, who starred on Fame Academy. The rest, they’ve vanished somewhere, although how they could lose Michelle McManus only Cowell himself will know.

Some of you might be wondering why I’m mentioning this, weeks after the X-Factor just finished.
Well, it comes to my attention that loser ‘Chico’ is looking set for the number 1 spot with his track. Now I would like to point out that I have no idea who or what a Chico is, but it sounds like a child’s train set. Anyway, he seems that in this ‘song’, he repeatedly asks “What time is it?”
Well Chico, it’s time for you to fuck off.

The Road to Nowhere

My usual commute to work isn’t that bad. Mainly because I work on Saturdays and any sensible person is still in bed at 8:00am of a Saturday, but other than that it’s a fairly easy drive with only one speed camera to negotiate.

Until of course, I get to the Inner Ring Road and encounter a huge bright yellow sign informing me that Phase 842 of the A58(M) finishing-off is currently underway, and then it’s traffic cones for as far as the eye can see.
It was one of those big “Sorry for the delay” signs, although judging by the amount of work that was actually going on, a more apt wording should have been; “We don’t give a monkeys about the delay and couldn’t give a rats arse if you are late or not, now stop whinging and drive on.” I trust they enjoyed their tea-break.

Leeds is a weird city when it comes to roads. The main reason being that the whole transport infrastructure of the city depends on this very motorway running straight through the city centre. If the Inner Ring Road is closed for any reason, the whole of Leeds grinds to a halt. Having said that, it doesn’t help that the road has remained unfinished for the past 25 years.
Ring Roads are usually just that, a ring. However this road is, well, straight. It was supposed to be a ring, but then they suddenly stopped building it. Probably because London said it needed something pointless, late and over budget, so Leeds wasn’t allowed any money to finish it and the Cockneys got their expensive useless project. The A58M isn't exactly a road to nowhere, it does go somewhere, but that somewhere just happens to be a different road that then goes somewhere.

The same happened at the end of last year. Leeds was supposed to get a brand spanking new Supertram system, so that we could actually get somewhere without the car, seeing as First Leeds are absolutely clueless when it comes to running buses. OK, the whole scheme went over budget by a fair bit and the bloke in charge of transport, Alistair Darling, wasn’t that keen on spending £355m on a fancy train set.
But then the Londoners were complaining that they needed a new ticket office so they could tootle off the Belgium for the weekend. Of course, as with anything, the Londoners needs suddenly became public priority number one, so us Northerners had to put up with queuing on Kirkstall Road for 3 days just to get to work.

Anyway, looks like I’ll be able to slalom in between the cones for the next few months. Might make the morning commute a bit more interesting

Great Cons of Britain Pt 2 - Extended Warranties

On the British High Street, you’ll more than likely come across a Dixons store. Dixons have been around for donkey’s years after they started out as a camera shop in the 1930’s. Today, they are without doubt Britain’s largest retailer of consumer electronics.
Not only that, but they were also recently voted Britain’s 5^th worst retailer. The main reason for that, amongst other things, is their fascination with extended warranties.

Whenever you buy a product, you are covered for faults for a ‘reasonable’ period of time. What’s is defined as reasonable is open for debate, but typically most places say 12 months. That said, there are European laws that say that you could be covered for much longer than that depending on what you bought.
The retailer has to give you this warranty at no extra charge, and it’s included in the price.

Now some boffin at Dixons HQ decided that he could get people to pay for this ‘freebie’, and so introduced the infamous “extended warranty”.

Basically, the spotty salesman behind the counter says “Here’s you camcorder, that’ll be £300. Would you like our super fantastic 300 year extended warranty with that?” Before you can say ‘no’, he’s already filled the form out and at the same time, earned himself a decent commission as well as added another £35 to your bill.

Dixons, as well as other places, got into a bit of bother over this and now have to do change a whole load of minute details to stay on the right side of the law. That said, they still make an absolute killing on the ignorant and the stupid who don’t realise they are being taken to the cleaners. Effectively, whenever some asks if you want an extended warranty, they are asking “Do you want to pay for something that you normally get for free by right?”

I despair sometimes at the British public, really I do

Great Cons of Britain Pt 1 - Booking Fees

A few weeks ago, a there was a study which set out to find the greatest icons of the UK. The shortlist came up with things like Big Ben, cricket, a cup of tea and that sort of thing. The stuff that really signified Britain.
However, whilst they were looking for icons of the UK, they should really have dropped the ‘I’ in that sentence, because there are plenty of great British cons, as well as icons.
In a short series, we’ll expose those cons, starting with the first one, booking fees.

You know the score, you try and book tickets for a movie at the local cinema. You go online, pick your film, pick your time and pick a reasonably priced £4.50 seat and go to the payment page.
Then, just as you are reaching for the credit card, the £4.50 seat turns into a £6.50 seat. The reason? Someone somewhere has sneakily forgot to mention the £2 booking fee.

Basically, a booking fee is a company’s way of saying. “Thank-you for wanting to buy our product, here a £2 charge for your valued custom.” They are essentially charging you for wanting to buy whatever junk they want to sell. Whoever thought of that idea is an absolute genius. Who says you can’t get money for old rope?

So anyway, you forget it. You don’t want to pay a booking fee, so you go to the cinema and try and get a ticket on the day, except everyone else in Leeds also doesn’t want to pay a booking fee, meaning you’ve got to snake around the labyrinth of the queuing ropes only to get to the window to find no seats left.
When you question this, you get told by the idiot in the booth how you can “book your tickets through our useful website.”

So, here’s the deal. If you want a £4.50 seat in the cinema, you need to pay £6.50. If you don’t want to pay £6.50, wait till Blockbuster gets it.

Why the Panic?

There's been a bit of hysteria lately following a Channel 4 documentary about the budget airline Ryanair.

In all fairness, Ryanair arn't exactly famed for avoiding controversy. Their boss Michael O’Leary is a typical hard-nosed, take no shit sort of business guy. A typical “by low, sell high” kind of bloke. He dislikes the disabled, frowns upon you taking luggage and thinks nothing of dumping you 100 miles from where you actually want to be, but when you’ve only paid 5p for a flight, you can’t really argue.

On Thursday, Channel 4 showed one of those “insider” documentaries, where an undercover journalist hides a camera in their shirt for 2 weeks and pretends to work there, uncovering all sorts of scandal in the process.

But in reality, the programme was crap. The only thing that the whole 1 hour programme really found out was that the Criminal Record Bureau is useless, journalists know nothing about planes and that human beings need sleep. Why they needed to pay someone to work for Ryanair for 5 weeks just to find that out is anyone’s guess.

OK, so you wouldn’t mind a fairly clean plane and you’d like it if things weren’t so rushed, but apart from that what’s to moan about?
Well this hack found plenty. Firstly, she didn’t know how the emergency slide worked on the door, so assumed it must be faulty. Then she was horrified to learn that one of the seats didn’t have a lifejacket.

Now apart from the initial shock of wondering how a passenger managed to walk out with a bright orange lifejacket bulging from under his shirt, why was she so bothered?
For some reason, she seemed to think that planes can land on water…no love, they don’t work like that. Planes don’t land on water, they plunge into the ocean and break into a thousand pieces. It’s just simple physics really.

It’s the sort of scaremongering that the British press is really good at. Us Brits love a good scandal now and again, especially the stupid amongst us.

Nobody should have been shocked by that programme. The sort of corner cutting you saw there was the sort you see in any other business, especially those in competitive markets. As long as the planes have just as many landings as they do take-offs, who cares?

In conclusion, Channel Four wasted an awful lot of money on a completely useless programme. Ah well, better luck next time chaps.

Chip & Pain in the arse

The day is almost upon us. The day when writing your name is no longer good enough. Instead, you need to remember a four-digit number to be able to buy anything in the UK using a credit or debit card.
Chip & PIN, which officially becomes the official way of paying on 14th February, is the latest weapon in the fight against credit card fraud and on the face of it it seems a good idea. Instead of a signature written on the back of the card for all to see, the card is "secured" by a number which you store deep in your memory.
The problem is, whilst it might be a weapon against the criminals, it's a catastrophe for the numerous idiots out there.
At work, we're one of the few 'major' retailers not yet to have Chip & PIN terminals, for various reasons, but the longer they draw it out, the better to be honest.
There are still plenty of people out there who "don't remember there number", despite being told plenty of times to change it to something they can remember. Even my Gran has managed to grasp Chip & PIN, so surely some 45 year old stuck-up, middle-class snob and do the same? Seemingly not if you watched the ITV News today. The report seemed to be very much focused on how Britain's retailers should be pandering to the stupid and ignorant, who refuse to accept that they'll need to remember 4 simple numbers.
One woman even claimed that she couldn't use Chip & PIN because she had arthritis which meant it hurt when she pushed the buttons. How holding a pen and writing her name out is better for arthritis I'll never know.
Oh I can't wait for the day when I get a verbal bollocking because some halfwit can't remember his number and that it's completly my fault, as a till operator, that he is a complete feckwit. Still, it's all part of retail work.
Happy PIN'ing!

Super League is Back!

At last, after a dull winter in which nothing really happened, the engage Super League is back!

Not only will the best Rugby League teams that England has to offer battle it out for a place in the Grand Final at Old Trafford, but the finest that the French can throw at us will also be having a pop.

For my team, Leeds Rhinos, it was back to the normal routine last season. After the unusual scenario of being Champions in 2004, it was back to being the Leeds of old.
We got to the Challenge Cup Final, and came 2^nd. We finished 2^nd in the league and in the Grand Final, we also finished 2^nd. After an anomaly in 2004, normal service had been resumed, although we did win the World Championship.

Whenever possible, we'll follow the Rhinos. Home & Away, whatever the weather. Going to the great and not-so great grounds that the league has to offer. Whilst you football fans might be bragging about how you went to the San Siro in Milan and the Nou Camp in Barcelona in the beautiful sunshine, I'll be standing in the pi**ing rain on a terrace in Leigh, but it's still brilliant.

Today, the first game of the new season was hopefully a sign of things to come, with a reasonable victory over Huddersfield Giants at Headingley (although we’re now supposed to call it ‘Headingley Carnegie Stadium’) I say reasonable, Leeds ran out 20-12 winners against what will probably be a mid-table side. The result was good and some things worked well, although it was the first game of the season with a number of new players making their debuts, so there were understandably a few mistakes thrown in there. A good result with improvements certainly on the way.

Next Friday, it’s onto the JJB Stadium in Wigan to take on the Warriors. The first of many journeys over the M62 for our mini-supporters club, all crammed tightly into a Citroen Saxo. It’ll be a difficult game. Wigan is always a difficult place to go, especially after their defeat against the new boys from France, Les Catalans on Saturday.

The games don’t get any easier either. The week after, we’re off the St Helens to play the favourites. Hopefully they’ll be a repeat of the joyous scenes as Leeds booked their place in last season’s Grand Final with a win at Knowsley Road but regardless of the result, it should be a belting game.

After that, it’s a ‘should-win’ against local rivals Castleford before we jet of to Perpignan as the Rhinos 2006 tour heads to Europe!

Bring on the season!

Pimp My Personality

Across the pond in the good ol' US of A, the MTV programme 'Pimp My Ride' is fairly popular, and why shouldn't it be? It's an interesting programme, what those people can do with a crumbling rust bucket is nothing short of brilliant and, in "X to the Z" Xzibit, it has a decent host.

And that's where the UK version fails. Instead of getting a charismatic, humorous and sensible host to present Pimp My Ride UK, MTV employed the grade A muppet that is Tim Westwood.

Those of you that like your R'n'B and Hip-Hop will know who this burke is, but for those of you who don't, Tim Westwood is the son of a vicar who hosts a Rap / Hip-hop show on BBC Radio One. He got shot in a drive-by incident in 1999 and even used to host some obscure late night music programme on ITV many moons ago, but that got cancelled before anyone knew it existed.
The problem for Westwood is that for some reason, he seems to think that he is black. Don't ask me why he thinks this, he just does.
Be it on TV or Radio, this half-wit is constantly telling us to "take it easy dawg" and "Holla!!" at every given opportunity. You could make a very strong case that Tim Westwood is the sole reason why Britain's youth is talking absolute bollocks.

As for Pimp my Ride, he's cringingly embarrassing. He's not funny, he's not charismatic and he can't talk like a rapper.

When he’s not telling some confused 19-year old how “strong” his “car game” is, he’s declaring how he “tears up the streets big style” in his stupidly big American truck.

Xzibit can get away with it, he can pull it off. A 48 year old, middle class, white man who’s pretending to be “street”, can’t get away with it.

What’s more outrageous is, because the guy works for the BBC, I’m paying to keep this tool in a job with my license fee. (In Britain, you have to pay £100+ per year to watch TV, and that pays for our impartial, advert free BBC)

The other problem is that for some peculiar reason, he seems to be popular with American rap artists. Now, I’ve nothing against rap artists, but if they can stand spending time with this half-wit, then they have probably taken one bullet to the head too many. But that gives him an even bigger ego. He thinks that as long as 50-cent seems to like him, then he must be the greatest DJ ever to grace the planet.

Funnily enough, ‘Fiddy’ (as I believe he is sometimes referred as) hasn’t offered to put him up in the States to keep him away from us Brits.

Can London do anything right?

As certain as night follows day, you can guarantee that something won't quite be right in the capital.

It seems that our friends in the big smoke can't do anything right, especially anything that happens to be a major project designed to show the world just how good it is.
In recent years, the city has somehow managed to make seemingly simple tasks into catastrophic financial disasters. First, they struggled to pitch a really big circular tent in Grenwich and even now, six years on, the projects founders are still scracthing their heads asking "What is it for again?" So, the start of the new millenium saw London throw £540m down the swanny but after that, you'd think they'd be more careful.
Well no, next came Wembley.

If you thought the Millenium Dome fiasco would instill some sanity and organisation into the plans, think again.
Firstly, nobody knew where to put the new national stadium. The FA wanted it in London. Anyone who lived outside London wanted it in the Midlands and Bradford Council wanted it in Bradford on the basis that there was nothing else there. Nobody listened to Bradford though. In fact, I imagine that the Birmingham and London campaigners told the representative from West Yorkshire just to sit in the corner and stop disturbing a serious discussion, but you can't fault them for trying.

As with anything worth doing, it had to be in the place where only those all important Londoners wanted it, soWembley it was although you can't help think that if Britain needed an ennema, the cockneys would want that too.

After the old Wembley was retired in a not so graceful manner in October 2000, the bulldozers moved in to start work on the new Wembley. That is, after the FA found some builders dumb enough to build the thing.
Firstly, they couldn't decide if they wanted a running track. Football fans said no, but the lottery funders wanted one. So the designers came up with some half-arsed attempt where the runners could race on some kitchen tables which could be locked away when a football match was on. That should be interesting!
Then, money talks. Initially, the estimated cost for the new stadium stood at around £660m. That's around 3 times more than the new Stade de France just outside Paris, and 5 times that of the Millenium Stadium, just 150 miles away in Cardiff.
But as with all things in London, the cost shot up. The next figure quoted was £750m (somebody obviously forgot to carry the one or something) but nobody seemed to mind, that was normal for a London project.

Anyway, the building contract was eventually awarded to a group of enthusiastic Aussies who quickly got to work and it looked "all systems go" for an FA Cup final in 2006. Well, no actually. Firstly the contractors announced that they had another £75m "descrepancy" and as far as I know, a team of Australia's finest are still looking for it behinf the sofa. Then the electricians went on strike and the work got delayed for the again and again.
Yesterday, they claim that there is only a 70% chance of them meeting the hand-over date.

I was looking forward to heading down to Wembley for the 2006 Rugby League Challenge Cup Final, the first at the new Wembley. Thing is, I now have this nagging feeling that I'll be watching the first ever Cup Final to be played in a building site.

So, that's Wembley marked down as another capital screw-up, surely the London 2012 Olympics isn't going to make a hat-trick? Well, yes, it is.
Just a month after London was awarded the games, it announced that they'd miscalculated how much it would cost to dig a long square hole and fill it with water and that it infact would cost DOUBLE what they estimated.
"Forget the cost, the Olympics will enspire the nations youth to get into sport" cry the games supporters, not least the government. Wrong again. This happens to be the same government that claimed in 2002 that:

“hosting major events is not an effective, value for money method of achieving a sustained increase in mass participation”

Still, you can't blame them for trying.

Stay tuned, because the Olympics could be the biggest cock-up yet.

Here's your £100 discount. That'll be £140 please.

It's that time of year when people like to start booking family summer holidays. The brochures start dropping on the doormat, the ads appear on the TV and your inbox seems fuller than normal.
This is the time when the tour operators circle around like vultures so that for £500 per person, they can kick you out of the country for a fortnight.

Now pleny of firms will offer you an "online discount", so we decided that was the way to go. After we filtered through the crap of flights from Leeds to Mallorca, via Brussels, Paris and Madrid that one e-firm was offering, we settled for a deal with Portland (well, it's actually Thomson but that's not important). It was 11 nights in Sa Coma, Mallorca, with flights to & from the shiny new Doncaster/Sheffield Robin Hood Airport, working out at £2200 for the 4 of us, including £100 online discount.

So, of we go, filling in the details until you get to the screen to chose your "extra cost options", things like your in-flight meals, taxi transfers, that sort of thing.

Then you get to the insurance page. Portland offered their insurance at £35 each or £140 for the 4 of us, which is fairly expensive as they sort of rely on the fact that despite the fact it costs more, the customer can't be bothered to look for cheaper insurance, so it's a nice little earner for them. We managed to get it cheaper with the Post Office, so we said no.

And that's where the problems started.

From that point, this intriguing error message came up, for no apparent reason and we were asked to phone up. Determined not to lose our online discount (Yorkshire folk are like that), we tried again and again and again and again the morning after.
At that point, my mind took me back to a story I read in the paper, where the bank Alliance & Leicester wouldn't let you by a loan online unlesss you took out their payment protection plan to boot. Instead, you were asked to phone their call centre in Bangalore where some small Indian boy tried to give you the hard sell.
So we tried with the insurance at a £140 premium. Strangley, the computer didn't seem to have a problem with that and it was more than happy for us a waltz straight through to the payment page.

So we jumped on the phone and tried to blag our £100 discount. Anyhoo, the operator on the phone didn't seem that suprised. Turns out that anyone who doesn't opt for the stupidly high insurance package ala Dixons, isn't allowed to take advantage of their generous offer.
A few "that's not on's" later and it was all sorted.
Come July, I'll be strapped into an aluminum tube in South Yorkshire hurtling down the tarmac at 200mph. Sound's like fun!

You're Late!

Those of you that have bothered to read the panel on the right will have noticed that I happen to have a retail job to pay my way though Uni. Well this weekend I had the misfortune to be working.

It would seem that in the last few days, the boss, who is the original David Brent, has had a bit of a bollocking over poor sales, poor standards, his haircut or something else equally stupid because he was far from a happy bunny.
On a typical day we're supposed to start at 8:30 in the morning, and work all the way through until 6:00. Thing is, we don't usually start at 8:30. We usually put the kettle on at 8:30 and start around 8:35. It's the done thing.

Now, seeing as the boss has taken a bollocking for his own incompetance, it's our fault. Of course it is, I mean, the boss is perfect right? It's never him who's the complete idiot who completely fecks up the rota so that you've no staff on your busiest trading day, oh no siree.

So we then get the sarcastic "So, what time do you start?" sort of ticking off and to be fair, he does kind of have a point (even if he is being a complete arse). We're payed from 8:30 so we should work from 8:30 - fair enough, we accept that and get on with it.

But of course, when it's getting towards 6:00pm, is he as bothered about the clock then? Oh no! five past, ten past, quarter past all tick by, with not a word of apology. But at least he's happy, he's got his free labour.
I'd speak up but the thing is, he hates me. I'm what you might call an "active thinker". I think about what people say and question them if I think it's wrong. He hates that. He'd rather me be completely passive and accept every word he says as gospel. He's the sort of guy where, if he did something without being told, i'd be initiative but if I do something without being told, I'm a smart-arse'd know-all. But hey-ho, I just ignore him now.

So anyway, guess who was late to work this morning?

Is Uri hoarding all the booze?

Looks like those Russians are in a bit of a pickle. Thank's to a new ruling, it looks like the country are about to run dry. It's not water that's the problem, nor is it that they've had to get rid of that gas that they couldn't pedle to the Ukraine. Oh no, it's something far more worrying than that. The Russians are about to run out of the one thing that makes them famous, vodka.

It would seem that a new law which came into force at the turn of 2006 has caught out Eastern Europe's biggest distilleries, who haven't yet embraced the digital age and started using computerised alcohol measures. Not only has it halted production, but it is also costing Putin and his cronies around £95m per day in liquor taxes.

Now, after two weeks with no liquor, the off-licenses are panicking and headlines of "The vodka is running out!" are starting to appear. Analyists are even predicting full-scale riots as drinkers turn to violence as they look for their favourite tipple.
Now, they say us Brits love our booze, but I think even in Leeds City Centre on a friday night you'd be unlikely to see riots because Yate's has gone through it's last barrell of Stella Artois. In fact the riots are usually caused by the fact that it is there in the first place.
Maybe that's a culture thing. The Brits go loopy with booze, the Russians go loopy without it.

Anyway, I don't see what all the fuss is about. That bloke "Uri" off the TV seems to have loads of the stuff stashed away at home. Have you not seen him on those Smirnoff adverts showing off his gigantic fridge and the like? Why not just go and ask him nicely for a quick drink? Unless of course, the Smirnoff corp are telling porky's and Uri is in fact, not Russian at all? No, surely not.

Jim'll fix it for Big Brother

In yet another half-ass'd attempt to boost flagging ratings, the makers of Big Brother have come up with their "master plan".
Leeds legend Sir Jimmy Saville will make a cameo apperance over the weekend and in a slight twist, Sir Jimmy will only be allowed to leave once he has "fixed it" for one of the contestants.
Now, those of you that remember Jimmy Saville's show will know what I mean by the term "fixed it", but for those of you that don't, let me explain.
Jimmy Saville used to present a show in the late 80's - early 90's called "Jim 'll fix it", where thousands of kids in the UK wrote in every year so they can get to see Jimmy's horrifying tracksuits. In return for scaring them for life with his disgusting wardrobe, Jim would grant a wish to the child in question. Usually this was stuff like "fly in a hot-air balloon", "read the weather" or "lift the FA Cup". If you asked Jim to sort you out with page 3 model or a winning Lottery ticket, then you'd probably be disapointed.
If you were subjected to Saville's blinding colour clashes, at least you got to wear a disgusting medal that would even make the jewellry manager at Argos vomit:

Anyhoo, Sir Jimmy will be allowed to run riot in the Big Brother house, with his nasty tracksuits, cuban cigars and chunky gold necklaces and will be allowed to "fix it" for one lucky contestant.
But wait a minute, I thought Jim wasn't "fixin' it" anymore, and if he is, surely he's got a huge backlog of letters from youngsters who he hasn't got round to yet? What makes these "celebrities" think they can jump to the front of the queue?
So back off Marsh! Get lost Rodman! Sling yer hook Galloway! Jimmy still owes me a private theme park and a lifetime's supply of Cadbury's creme eggs!

Who Do You Think You Are? The frikkin' Mayor?

Over the last year or so, Leeds City Council has taken a tough stance on some fairly contencious issues. First there was litter, which earns you a £50 fine. Then, it was outdoor drinking which would see you in bother.
Most recently, the Council took over the cities parking enforcement. Once the responsibility of the local police, it was now the council's job to annoy the white van man who was blocking the city's bus lanes with his hazard lights on by putting yellow stickers on his windscreen.
To be fair, they certainly told us. Ad campaigns in the local paper, bus shelters, radio stations, the whole caboodle. Eventually, Leeds City Council sent out their army of traffic wardens, armed with bright orange jackets and a military supply of pens and notepads. No double-yellow line parker was safe.
Now before you start to think this will turn into a Jeremy Clarkson style rant about the victimisation of motorists, I'll point out that I actually supported the Council in this "take no shit from nobody" attitude. The thing is, I could see it somehow coming back to bite them in the backside.

So to my suprise in todays Yorkshire Evening Post (which happens to be a local evening paper that is available to buy at about 11:00am), I read that the city's most famous car has been landed with a £60 fine. The owner? Only the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Coun Bill Hyde himself!
Turns out that some "over-zealous new recruit" as he put it, had put it issued the fine, despite the car being parked in the same place outside the Civic Hall many times before.
Now, it's not like the traffic warden didn't know. It's one of the rarest cars in the world, with the numberplate "U 1", so he could hardly confuse it with my Citroen Saxo.

Now Mr Hyde faces shelling out for a £60 fine. Thing is, he won't be shelling out for it, it'll be the poor sods known as the Leeds City Council taxpayer that'll be expected to bail out this idiot just because he's too lazy to use the multi-story around the corner.
If it were my call, I'd send him an ultimatum: Pay-up, or the next time you see your car, it'll be a baked bean tin.

How do they think it up?

Now, let me go on the record and say that I absolutly detest Big Brother. In fact I can't stand "reality TV" full stop. It's a tired, overused concept to make cheap TV for cash-strapped networks that appeals to your typical "Sun or "Daily Star" reader.
All the while, "celebrities" or even "nobodies" try to salvage themselves a career in TV, radio or some other glamourous industry. Failing that, they'll can always be the special guest at the opening the the Runcorn branch of "Pound-Stretcher".

However, my attention was mildly divereted during a news bulletin, where politician George Galloway seemed to be having a right old pop at Essex girl Jodie Marsh. (You know, that bird who turned up at the FHM awards wearing sod-all).

Now I feared for Jodie here from the start because, lets face it, she doesn't strike you as the most elloquant of debaters.
The jist of it semed to be about eskimos, those little fellers who live in the Artic, with Jodie seemingly going on about their primitive ways.
On jumps Galloway with one of the best put-downs you're likely to hear:
"Given what you openly admit to, who are you to claim that an eskimo is uncivilised?!" (or something like that anyway)
A stunned Marsh looks blankly into space, not knowing what to think before coming out with, what has to be said, isn't the best of responses:
"Well they don't have shops and computers and stuff!"

At that my cornflakes almost flew to the other side of the room! What a brilliant response, even I wouldn't have thought of that one! That's the sort of line that blonde jokes are made of!
Now I know why they keep people locked away from society in the Big Brother house. In many ways, it's a shame it's only 28 days long.

God Bless the Hand Car Wash

Popular in the States for far too long, the commercial minnow that is the 'Hand Car Wash' has seemingly crossed the Atlantic and set up base in Britain.
For years and years, we've had to endure "IMO" and their mechanical monsters enguliving your pride-and-joy with it's huge rollers and snapping your car antenna as it spits you out the other side with a scratched and not-very-clean car.
Then of course there's the jet-wash which, quite frankly, despite being on every petrol station forecourt in the land, should require a license and training before they even let you near the thing.

But now, almost every major commuter route of of Leeds is lined with these Hand Car Wash's. Moving into dis-used petrol stations, and setting up camp, they've transformed the way in which Britains lazyist get our cars clean.
Yes, they may be the epitome of "probably less than minimum wage exploitation", with almost all the staff seemingly just arrived off the last mini-bus from somewhere in Eastern Europe, but look how clean my car is!

Just drive in on your way home, pay the man at the gate your £5.50, and sit back and listen to your Stereophonics CD, whilst the other blokes direct you with milimetre precision to "move forward" and "stop there" with dubious hand guestures. You even get a little airfreshner to hang on your rear-view mirror.

Not only that, but some of them have brilliant names. OK, you've got the wholey unorigional, "Leeds Hand Car Wash" and "Mr Clean", but head up to Morley in South Leeds and you'll come across "Mr Hand Job". Top marks to whoever did that!

Yes, the Hand Car Wash might signify everything that is wrong with the exploitation of foreign workers. Whilst six blokes who, between them know about the same number of words in English, slave other your bird-poo ridden motor at 6:30pm on a cold January evening, "Mr Clean" comes out of his cosy office and into his Porsche Boxter to head home early for the weekend.
But the Handy wash has become part of 21st British culture, it's what makes the rush hour worth while and, above all, it means I don't have to bleeding clean it!