Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Fly on the wall, overpricing and special offers


Another week and another eye-opening fly on the wall television programme.  This time the cameras follow the emergency services in Blackpool and show what the crews have to deal with day and night.  The episode this week focused on young people..............well, what an entertaining bunch those featured turned out to be.  One 13 year old was arrested for head butting a police officer followed by swearing at him, which earned the lad a night in the cells.  The programme makers interviewed his mother who couldn’t understand why the police didn’t just bring him home “like they used to do to me at that age”.  Oh right then, that is totally acceptable.  Another woman (I use the term loosely) was arrested for prostituting herself under the pier in broad daylight with a group of young lads for a fiver “a broken fiver at that” she said.  This piece of loveliness claimed she didn’t think Blackpool is a family holiday resort – in fact she described it as a shit hole.  You can’t beat the education standards these days.  Chavs displaying their finest qualities – I feel sorry for the decent citizens of the town who have to live amongst these people.

Despite the poor weather this summer I seem to have a garden of triffid proportions which all need cutting and sorting before the autumn sets in.  How on earth can everything have grown so much without any sunshine?  The ground has been so wet over the past few months that I considered growing rice – I quite fancy standing in a paddy field to harvest my crop.  I made a start on the chopping at the weekend and have bizarrely given my Dad the go ahead to prune selected areas when I go on holiday.  Once more I will be trying to source some police tape to cordon off certain parts of the garden to try and prevent an unnecessary cull.............perhaps a local farmer has a spare length of electric fencing I could utilise?  Hmmm, must look into this further.

I had a reply from London Zoo in response to my email following the overpriced visit where the lack of main attraction animals was evident.  Apparently they have over 650 species on display, this includes hundreds of varieties of insects........who on earth wants to see these?  The response also states that “we do not advertise anywhere at all that we have these animals here at London Zoo”.....I beg to differ as the onsite maps around the zoo clearly show the camel and gorilla areas, neither of which were evident on the day of our visit.  The extortionate food prices are, apparently because “we do source our food from local, high quality suppliers and this does mean that this is reflected in the costs we charge our visitors”..........how can two sandwiches with not much in the way of fillings, two bags of crisps (branded, not locally made) and two bottles of soft drink cost over £14???  Sadly this is another place that is on the ‘do not bother to go again’ list.  The food prices at the zoo made Waitrose seem like a bargain store.

My parents are off to the Lake District for a short holiday with their wellies and umbrellas packed.  Plenty to see and do in the area and I daresay there will be a few amusing tales to tell when they return.  Twelve months ago my Mum couldn’t have entertained the idea of such an active trip but since her new hip was fitted there is no stopping her.  I am not entirely sure she will be scaling Scafell Pike but at least walking around the towns and doing some Christmas shopping should be okay. 

This week’s special offers via email...........a pack to help me stop smoking (bearing in mind I have never even tried a ciggie); the mobility scooter has made a reappearance; offers of payday loans with repayment rates in the thousands of percents; and finally, private healthcare – I guess this will come in handy for the vasectomy I was offered a couple of weeks ago.  I just love the total lack of research done prior to the send button being pressed on these messages.  I can hardly wait for the next crop to land in my inbox!

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