The AA Man

So, I was right. Although, I was also wrong.

The AA are great. Ten minutes after calling them the AA man called to say he was on his way. I was quite impressed with that. Although, I was doing Sunday dinner and it was a bit of a distraction from my normal Sunday in the kitchen cooking dinner. The footy was on, you see. When he arrived Liverpool were trailing 1-0 and when I'd given him my keys and explained the problem they were suddenly drawing 1-1. I hate that.

Anyway, he turned up at my door and thrust something in my face and said "there's your problem". It was about 12 inches long, black and sort of weird shaped. It could have been used in the bedroom for all I know. Apparently, it was important. And broken. And the new one he put in was £48. Anyway, the car is now fixed. He, apparently, was amazed the previous one had lasted so long. "these French cars are rubbish, i'm replacing these things all the time". Imagine the French being rubbish at building 12 inch weird looking things that could be used in the bedroom. For all I know.

I haven't actually tried the car since then, of course. So he could have ripped me off for all I know. But he's the AA man. So I know where he lives. Well, I don't, but it can't be far.

Why isn't it an AA woman that turns up? I'd much prefer an AA woman thrusting a 12 inch weird shaped thing in my face and retorting "there's your problem". I'd have a good answer ready for that.

Sod the French though. Shit car makers. Nice cheese though. If they made cars out of cheese they would probably be brilliant.

Never buy French cars

A French friend of mine came to dinner once and when she turned into our street she clocked my Scenic and laughed her head off (not literally). "Vy on Eerth have you bought such a shit car?" she retorted.

Since that time my car has been no end of trouble. It's cost me an arm and a leg to keep it going and once again this morning it's juddering again. It's water getting into some control panel or something. The AA will fix it in a jiffy. The dealer would tell me to get it towed to the garage and they would charge me £400 or something for blowing on it.

Recently, they charged me £300 to fix a resistor. Now don't get me wrong, i'm all for the free market economy, but how can a tiny wee resistor cost £300? They're tiny wee things. I think if you added up all the individual costs for parts in my car it must be worth £1m. It's amazing they sell them so cheaply really.

I'm buying Japanese cars from now on.

Inspiration

I was inspired, in part, to start this blog by my mate, Musters, who has this blog.

But look at the state of that post!! It's almost, and I stress the word 'almost' (but not quite) enough to make me give up. In some way it inspires me more. Maybe I can blog when I'm drunk, or pretending to be. He is obviously doing one or the other.

His blog is better than mine, so far. But who knows, maybe mine will, ultimately, be read by 3 or 4 people.

Queues

We took the kids into town yesterday to go on the big wheel. We do this every year. My kids take great pride in spinng the gondola (for I think that's what they are known as) to make me feel unwell. I normally sit static and stare at a fixed point (usually the Castle, but that can be difficult if the kids are spinning the gondola).

Anyway, after we paid our £3.50 per adult and £2.50 per child we followed the people in front to join the twenty minute queue. Bizarrely, I then noticed that there were, in fact, two queues. One of them was empty. By empty I mean nobody was in the other queue. Not a soul. Well for a minute or two it was empty. Then some Sunday dad came into sight in the other (previously empty) queue and walked through the metal barriers straight to the front and onto a gondola straight away. I don't mean he walked through them as a ghost might, because that would be weird. Nor did he leap over them like a hurdler, which would have been impossible due the close proximity of the lines the barriers made.

I took to staring then at anyone else that did this, in the eyes, as if to say "i know you know you are jumping the queue and I'm going to stare at you doing it, not look away embarrased that i'm stood in a twenty minute queue". I wanted them to know I knew what they were doing. They were jumping the queue.

It wasn't their fault, of course. But I couldn't stare at the Big Wheel workers because, apart from being quite hard looking, they weren't making eye contact with anyone.

I carried on staring at one bloke in the next gondola when I was sat atop the Big Wheel. By then it didn't seem as important. However, I needed a fixed point in space to look at and his snake tattoo on his neck seemed a distraction too inviting to ignore.

I think the kids enjoyed it. The Wheel I mean, not my staring.

X Factor

I miss "It's a Knockout". Saturday evenings used to be much funnier.

The kids were watching something last night where people had to stand next to a pool and pose into a shape in front of an advancing big shape thing. If they got it wrong they got knocked into a swimming pool. I'm not sure if the pool had a shark in it or not (which would have made it even funnier), however, falling into the pool was obviously what losers did.

I checked back a little later (I was cooking tea) and the 'final' looked like all three contestants in a team (family maybe) had to make a combined shape in front of an even faster advancing big shape thing. The team I watched survived and, presumably, became the winners.

A girl has won X Factor, apparently. I know her name now, but suspect I might struggle next year. I might remember "JLS" because the tune to "3.A.M. Eternal" (I bet they stole the 'L' from 'KLF') goes off in my head every time I see it written. I doubt I'll remember any of their tunes 20 years on. I'll definately not remember that wee fella with the unwritable name and permanent smile. Good luck to the boy though.

It's definately not It's a Knockout though is it?

Surely, bringing that back and binning the Eurovision Song Contest would be much funnier than this X Factor nonsense? We could even let Terry Wogan host the European final, or he could bring out the Joker just before the cat and fish event. I still like Stuart Hall's voice now, listening to him summarise a Saturday afternoon's game at Wigan or Bolton is a real treat.