New blind trap in London Borough of Sutton

I can't say that the new blind trap in Sutton High Street (see my bloog in May), innovative though it is, really works; but I do applaud the courage of London Borough of Sutton in setting aside all caution in order to at least try to inflict injury on the parasites who pretend to be blind or infirm.

The hole is now exposed on two sides while two temporary fences are lying sideways from it, creating a hazardous zone some twenty feet wide. & it was been like that for give weeks.

This is a tremendous effort. Here's to a borough of heroes

Journey to Bristol

I went to Bristol yesterday. You'd think it'd be easy.

A week before, I tried to buy a ticket from the website from the local branch of Diarrhea Trains – Southern.

Their website is such a mess I gave up and tried Trainline, which I hate on cognition grounds.

I chose the tickets I wanted and went all the way through to the end of their process when a bank page cut in and said they wanted my extra password to give me added security. 3D Secure they call it. Or possibly VD

So I gave it to them and they said there was an error and I should try again later. I tried again later and got the same thing. I tried again later and got the same thing.

I rang the bank and they said it was nothing to do with them and I should contact Trainline. They said Trainline could authorise my transaction without going through the security if the difficulty remained. They implied there might a cognitive dysfunction with the train company. I was ready to believe that.

On the way home I noted that I could buy a ticket only a bit more expensive from the automatic machine at my station. It wouldn't let me travel until 9:30 but I considered it as an option to avoid dealing with airheads.

I tried Trainline again on last Saturday and got the same crap.

I went to the Trainline help website and sat through various crap where they guessed what the problem was and got it wrong; and then finally allowed me to describe the problem.

I received a message from an idiot who addressed me as “Dear Upton” and then proposed all the crap they had already proposed: I hadn't typed the card number correctly; I had the wrong address; it might be the wrong kind of card; the bank might not have authorised it; I was not the cardholder; the card might not be usable on the internet; I hadn't completed the details requested in the secure area of the system I mentioned; or I might not be enrolled.

Now as I had indicated I was beyond all so that this message was a variety of mental masturbation by a dunghead implying the problem might be that I am a dung head. The dunghead was sorry for the inconvenience caused, by the problem, not by them being a dunghead – I am sure they never entertained that idea.

Then it said “If none of the above reasons apply to you, please send us a screen shot of the error, so that we can investigate it further and give a quick resolution to you.

So I went through the whole bloody process again in order to generate a picture of what I had already told me. I didn't get a quick resolution. I didn't get a resolution at all.

They also said that I could phone them “and one of our associates will assist you in the most convenient manner.”

I was trying to avoid that

“For any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.”

Sure

I heard back a few hours later. The operative did not understand the message any more than I did but said it had written to someone else and why didn't I phone someone else if I really wanted a train ticket.

Silence for days.

So I bought my tickets over the phone. It was agony. Everything had to be said three times. They told me how much they were enjoying the mission. They told me a bit about how trains worked.

I had to rest after the experience. Why can't they just do their jobs without talking shit?

They charged me a pound for the service.

Five days later I heard back

This chap was sorry to hear about my problems. He told me a bit about himself and said he had investigated my problem; and he had come to a conclusion.

Basically, he told me what I had told them 5 days before. He thought it was probably the Seedy Security System. He didn't know what the message meant either. And he denied it was anything to do with him.

He suggested I phone the bank. He said he could not bypass the security

He said this system “is now widely used on almost all online payment sites.” An interesting construction.

He suggested that if I didn't get any joy, I should contact him; I suppose that's so he can tell me that, as he told me, there is nothing he can do.

At my station, the ticket machine was mulfunctioning, as it's designed to, and it took me perhaps 15 minutes to get my tickets.

When I tried to enter the station, the gate rejected the tickets, but a human let me on. They know about their ticket machines.

Southern make all their machinery inhouse using excess bullshit, dried and shaped. It helps keep costs down.

But it's also why there aren't enough ticket machines. They shape ushabti managers out of the stuff; and they're not very good at strong bullshit; so the more the system spreads – or, as they say, is rolled out (like Jamie Oliver with a rolling pin) – the more it all breaks down for lack of material.

I had gone about an hour early because the previous day there had been delays of up to an hour due to a line problem no a track problem no we don't know what it is a line problem no a temporary delay; and I know from experience that none of the train companies can estimate how long anything takes. They assume their timetables are kept to and that one can transfer from platform to platform instantaneously. Apart from the innate stupidity and mental laziness of the staff, this is also because they are generally located tens of miles from the places they are supposedly administering. It is an extremely fashionable idiocy that this improves efficiency. Efficiency is deemed to be high when a majority of people have given up complaining.

My ticket worked perfectly well at Victoria and every where else. It only did not work at the station which issued it.

All went fairly well until I got to Victoria Underground Station where the gates were locked and a single nonce was explaining in a low voice why the gates were locked. The electorate stood obediently in a low herd in front of him so that newcomers could not  get near enough to hear him.

I crossed the road and went in the other entrance.

On the platform I found there were no circle line trains. After a while a nonce with a microphone said that Circle line trains were subject to delay. I thought: Tell us when we might expect one you skull full of stale giblets. But she did not. Nor did it occur to her, seemingly, that she was reading out useless messages. Not my job.

She said nothing about other ways of getting anywhere. Lots of confused foreigners who didn't seem to understand what she was saying. Unsurprisingly. She hardly opened her mouth.

I went to Earls Court on a Wimbledon train. We stopped a few times for the statutory Conjugal Break, which now has to be taken solo for security reasons. I understand that Friday's “Signalperson's Relationship Person” (Formerly “Signalmen's Wives”) was particularly stimulating and trains were stopping repeatedly all over the network.

At Earls Court the train I wanted was there but not flagged so I stood by the door until they displayed the destination and simultaneously broadcast “stand away” and closed the doors. They do have fun!

Incidentally, you had to know that to get to Paddington you have to get an Edgware Rd train; it doesn't occur to the company to explain that.

And so to Paddington.

I walked past my carriage because the person assembling the train doesn't know its alphabet. I walked back to Carriage D but found the door label was in the low seat numbers and my ticket was high. So I walked to the other end and boarded, where I found that the seat numbers ran in the other order and I was among the low numbers. So I walked back inside the carriage, climbing over my fellow Britons, few of whom understand that their bodies occupy space.

Free TV! so that you could for instance see a list of trains that were late but that you were not on. (You couldn't be on them because they were late... That may be a bit abstract for First Great Western)

I don't know what went wrong but the ticket checker was polite and friendly. He won't last long.

And so to Bristol where I was able to spend some hours with a sane person before going back.

Clinton and Syria

Now I want you to listen to me.

We never had military relations with that country, Syria

How to walk (2) Ask and answer

Be constructive when you go through a ticket gate at a train station. Don't just get through it as quickly as possible. Go through the ceremony.
Ask-and-answer! Ask yourself: What am I trying to do? Answer yourself: I am trying to impose my will or the memory of my presence upon everyone else. (Initially it may be best to stand still to ask and-answer; but soon you'll be able to do it almost without thinking.)
OK. So you go up to the gate and pause and fumble. Look as though you can't find your ticket; or the gate doesn't work. Use the wrong ticket. Drop the ticket. Anything you can think of really.
Only when you have caused the maximum plausible delay, should you go through.

Director blames Shakespeare for mediocrity

The Olympic Stadium will be transformed into the "British countryside" for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Games on 27 July.

A cast of 10,000 volunteers will help recreate country scenes, against a backdrop featuring farmyard animals and landmarks like Glastonbury Tor.

The opening scene of the £27m ceremony will be called "Green and Pleasant", artistic director Danny Boyle revealed.

There have already been 157 cast rehearsals and Boyle added: "I've been astounded by the selfless dedication of the volunteers, they are the pure embodiment of the Olympic spirit and represent the best of who we are as a nation."

The set will feature meadows, fields and rivers, with families taking picnics, people playing sports on the village green and farmers tilling the soil.

Real farmyard animals will be grazing in the "countryside", with a menagerie of 30 sheep, 12 horses, three cows, two goats, 10 chickens, 10 ducks, nine geese and three sheepdogs. [That's actually almost the entire countryside]

One billion people worldwide are expected to watch the opening ceremony.

The 27 July event will feature:

    * Pre-show starting at 20:12 BST
    * 1,100 automated lamps
    * One million watt sound system with 500 speakers
    * 50 tonnes of sound gear
    * 15,000m sq metres of staging
    * 12,956 props
    * 24,570 costume buttons for one of opening sequences

[They've nicked this from a T S eliot poem]

The world's largest "harmonically-tuned" bell, weighing 23 tonnes and measuring 2m tall x 3m wide, will ring inside the Stadium to start the Shakespeare-inspired spectacle, featuring 900 children from the six Games host boroughs.

The bell, which was produced by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and is inscribed with a quote from The Tempest's Caliban: "Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises", was installed in the Stadium last week.

Boyle said it was appropriate

Among the other features will be two pits - one representing the Glastonbury festival and another the Last Night of the Proms - filled with members of the public.

Sky wins award

Sky have just been awarded my coveted prize "Inept Handjobber Class 1"

I have been online in Cafe Nero for an hour and a quarter; suddenly, after weeks of quite peaceful service, it keeps redirecting me to a page telling me how good sky is and telling me my name and that I am logged in. I ignored it and got another page demanding "enter your street number"

So, rise up, Handjobbers Class 1

How to walk (1) Be mindful of your selfishness

Hi there, soon-to-be-successful person.
I say that because you have just embarked on a course of professional reading that is bound to enhance your career, if you follow it.
So, let's get started.
If I ask you "Why do we walk?" and you answer anything about getting places or taking exercise, then you have some learning to do if you want to be successful.
But, don't worry; I'm here to help.
Friend, the reason that we walk is the same reason that we do anything: to impose our will on other people's minds, so that we can be sure that we come out on top.
There's no disputing it. If, after thought, you disagree with me, then you're on the wrong course; and we should part now, with no hard feelings -- as long as you get out of my way when we meet.
Only kidding.
But let's hope that you do see at least something in what I say. That feeling will grow, I assure you.
Here's your homework. There are hundreds, no thousands, of my ex students right across these standardised countries of ours who have found that I have the answer to success. Success by walking.
Here is your first task; but it is not assessed.
Be aware (what the Buddhists call "mindful") of all the walking you do today; and consider how you could have made people more aware of your presence in the way that you did it if you were just to make a few innovations.
Then we can move on to Chapter 2.