More muppit-like parking.

OK, those who recognise the place in the photos now know who I work for. Tough. There's 400 plus in my depot - now figure out who I am ;)

Anyhow. The four-wheel-drive tank shown in the photos here is parked in the emergency bus stop section of this branch of Sainsburys. That's right. EMERGENCY bus stop. Buses in both directions of travel call at the same stop (to the right, off camera, in the second photo), and if one breaks down, to allow services to continue, we have an emergency stop. Sainsburys learned from the last time, before they rebuilt the stop. Unfortunately, their staff, and this is an assumption here, have not: I'm assuming its one of their staff, as I keep seeing the same damn car parked in the same damn place, day in, day out, wherever I drive this particular route.

You'd think that Euro Parking would have put a fine on this muppit already, woldn't you?

Nope.

It appears that if you work in this branch, you could probably park on the branch managers' foot, and get away with it.

Wonder how they'll react when a bus breaks down, and TfL uplift their cars for being illegally parked on a bus stop?

It happens, you know. Witness this photo!

Operation Get A Life is back on the cards...

OK, it's official: I've had it up to here with living in London; the original idea was to sell up, and with the profits of the home sale, find a better place to live without requiring a mortgage. This is now not an option; ten years ago, you could be reasonably assured that if you owned your place inside the M25, you could move out of London to almost anywhere in the UK, and move up a step in the property ranks without needing a mortgage, as the sale of your place in London would fund the new out-of-London place completely. This is not now the case, and hasn't been for "a number of years", and this was confirmed by the estate agent I spoke to over the weekend.

So, while I'm planning on getting out of London as rapidly as possible, buying a replacement home is now not a viable or realistic option. So, I'll be renting for a while, by the look of it. No problem, then: Thousands on thousands of folks do that each month, and while it is, yes, more expensive than a mortgage, it is, at least, available in the short-to-medium-term while I get my backside in gear, so to speak.

So.

Now I have to address storage options. Yes, storage. You think a rented place is going to be as large as my current place? think again. Storage. And this is where it's gonna get hellishly expensive, unless I get creative. Much of my stuff I'll likely get rid of, and start afresh in the new place (at that time); the rest I'll either leave behind (for the new home owner of my current home), or store.

The Times on Saturday 5th July 2008 in the "Money" section, page 8, had an interesting article "Box Clever or brace yourself for a hefty bill". The upshot is that renting storage is - or can be at least - as expensive, if you're not careful - as renting central London retail space. Not a heartening thought, that. So, time to be creative. I have a couple of options, one free (whoopee!), one not so.

Free option: use a friends' spare garage space. Pros: Free, available. Cons: Relies on goodwill of friend, and you must be ready to shift it somewhere else rapidly if the space is needed by the friend for any reason whatsoever - it's his or her property that you're using as storage space, after all; furthermore, if you use this option, you must, at the drop of a hat, be ready to lend any and all assistance to said friend - they're doing you a favour, so obviously the reverse must be true.

Paid-for option: use as little storage space as you can: Get rid of the large items before you move, and pack the stuff you retain in as small a physical space as humanly possible - likewise, you must shift it into storage yourself as well: This means renting a van, boxes, and so on, and getting a damn good padlock, storage insurance, and so on.

It is not going to be easy. Especially as I'm planning to get out of London as rapidly and as reasonably as I can.

But then, nothing worthwhile ever IS easy, is it?

So much for my attention to detail - a cautionary Radio Ham tale...

Well, they say we learn by our mistakes, don't they?

Here's a silly an easily avoidable fubar you can all relate to (if you're a radio amateur, that is)...

So, here I am, at my partner's place for some desperately needed depressurisation time, and also having taken along my FT-817 (a very portable lightweight two-way radio, which is able to operate over many different radio frequency bands), with my partners' permision, began to set up a test station for an evenings low-power (or QRP as its' known) operating.

So, with my 'Miracle Ducker' antenna (an expensive but promising portable all-HF band antenna system consisting a quite good matching box and a long "random wire" cable) in hand, I looped the plug end of the cable on the spike of the upstairs bedroom window opener to secure it, and dropped the coiled cable out the window. No problems thus far, and all secure.

Realising that the cable was too short to reach the other end of the garden, I also brought some paracord (the green string that the army uses with wild abandon, and that you can get in your local Milletts shop); one end of this cord I tied to the free (non-plug) end of the antenna cable. I then proceeded to attach the other end of the paracord to a tree, and haul the combined and heavy (there was the first hint) cable to a horizontal and slightly less than drooping position.

There was a twich, and a faing pinging sound from the window at this point, which was the second hint that should have alerted me to the impending disaster that was coming, but since the only cables I'd used before for wire format antennas had been military issue stuff that's very tough (for those in the know: Clansman dipole wires), thought nothing more about it.

PING.

The cable unhooked from the window spike; I was looking the wrong way, and there was a little wind which was causing the odd twitch in the line, so didn't notice any tell-tale sags or twitches in the line. At this point, the 'BNC' plug on the end of the cable hung up on the window spike. Not good.

TING

The plug broke free from the cable, and the entire cable fell to the ground. This, I noticed, of course.

It was at this point I realised that I had a problem, but did not think I had much of one - attachment ideas often release when you don't want them to, after all. I just thought it was the embuggerance of having to reattach the cable to the window spike.

Wrong, of course.

When I walked back to the other end of the cable, what I saw caused the air to turn a wee bit blue (ok, a LOT blue). The centre pin of the plug, still soldered to the cable, was looking me square in the face. No sign, of course, of the rest of the plug. Wouldn't matter anyhow, as I had a busted plug on my hands, and no spares or even tool kit - the point of operating portable is that you shouldn't NEED a tool kit. So much for that idea, folks (and that's on the list now, too: Portable tool kit).

There was no bloody way I was going to be able to use the antenna cable this time over; it was well and truly buggered, busted, and fubared. Call it what you like: It was broken.

And I'd broken the damn thing.

Oh..... pooh.

NEXT time, folks, I'll use a slightly more robust antenna/cable set, that I'll construct beforehand. It'll be a random wire setup still, but with decently attached connectors and attachment hooks at each end. The only drawback? It won't be truly quick to set up. Ho hum.

Here's the moral: Trailing antenna cables are strong: Antenna connector plugs are most emphatically NOT. Next time, use either a proper fixing kit, or a dedicated outdoors antenna kit!

Here endeth the unfortunately rather annoying lesson!

Knockback.

I half suspected this would happen, so I shouldn't have been too surprised.

Having come back to work on light duties, I was put on the customer services desk at our head office. And there I've worked, not missing one day off, working as best I could, dealing with the public. So much so, I was really beginning to enjoy the office, the job, and the possibility of working there permanently.

So, I applied for the post.

so did well over a hundred and eighty other folks. yeah. One eight zero.

I made the paper sifts through to the final twelve for interview, and this gave me a one-in-six chance of getting the job (they were recruiting two permanent staff to the job).

Needless to say, thanks to the points system they handicap the interview process with, I was stuffed from day one, and never knew it until AFTER the dust settled.

Since this damn company has rules regarding public comments on the company, I can't name it, but you can take this to the bank: Any loyalty that I had for them is now down the goddamn toilet, folks.

I have had enough. I've been knocked back by this damn firm three times in the last eighteen months, and I've finally had enough. I am now, officially, looking to get the hell out of London.

Congratulations, London: You succeeded. I know when I'm beaten, and I'm now trying as best as I can to find a way out of this bloody rat trap. You see, everything that I've tried to do to improve my life since leaving school, has come to naught. I got onto the property ladder when it dipped; my flat was worth 47500 then; it's worth a shedload more now, but then, one used to be able to have a London property and move up to an actual house if you moved out of London.

Not anymore: EVERYWHERE is as flaming expensive. I know this now: I looked online this evening.

In the fifteen years since I bought this place, and have worked on a shoestring set of wages, the rest of the blasted country has cottoned onto the way you can allegedly finance your life with your property.

I am, in other words, f***ed. Sorry, there's no other suitable way of putting it.

I'm 43.

I had a heart attack recently.

I've had enough of the capital.

I want quality of life.

I've no bloody chance.

Folks, I'm at my wits end here, and can't see a way out. I have naff-all in the way of qualifications, five O levels, a driving licence, know how to make a basic web page, can use fireworks and dreamweaver, along with Pagemaker and Photoshop, and I'm fairly computer-literate; only problem is that for none of those do I have paper qualifications. In addition, I'm qualified to drive buses (if the DVLA actually pulls their fingers out and conform that I can drive a bus again - they're dragging their heels again), and no bloody idea how to go about getting my life back on my terms.

I'm stuffed, in other words.

I'm throwing the floor open to ideas. Comment away. I'll read every comment, but I won't promise to reply.

Chances are that I'll be too busy being ground down by the system.

On inconsiderate and muppit-like parking...

OK, it's a Sunday in not-so-sunny Basingstoke, and there I am, with my partner, going to see a movie at the Odeon at the Basingstoke Leisure Park, and most of the parking places are occupied. Including two spaces taken up by one extraordinarily selfish driver. I mean look at it. There is NO way on the planet anyone could possibly mistake this for careless parking, is there?

So, I photographed it. I also date-stamped and GPS co-ordinate tagged the photo. All the owner needs do, if terminally embarrassed, is write a polite comment here as to why he or she parked like Miss Piggy, and I'll be happy to obscure the numberplate.

In case you can't read the Tagging information, here it is:

[Image]
Model = hp iPAQ hw6900
Exif IFD Pointer = Offset: 65
GPS Info IFD Pointer = Offset: 163

[Camera]
Exif Version = Version 2.2
Date Time Original = 2008-05-25 14:01:07
Light Source = unknown
Flash = Off
Exif Image Width = 640
Exif Image Height = 480

[GPS]
GPS Latitude Ref = North latitude
GPS Latitude = 51°15'56"
GPS Longitude Ref = West longitude
GPS Longitude = 1°6'57"
GPS Altitude Ref = Sea level
GPS Altitude = 132m
GPS Time Stamp = 13:01:07 UTC
GPS Status = Measurement in progress
GPS Measure Mode = 3-dimensional measurement
GPS DOP = 0.5

And the location, to it's actual and exact position, is here.

Bear in mind that all GPS units have a tendancy to be a few metres off, so I corrected the location of the parking bay to the actual location on the map. Never the less, the photo is untouched!

Ball's in your court, have a nice day!

err..... "Oops?"!

So, there I am, on the phone to someone in a well-known bus company's depot, looking to recover some lost property for a mate. I get the stock answers of "Hello, (Company Name), how can I help" and so on; this is roughly how the rest of it went...

"Yeah, I'm looking for a mobile phone that belongs to a mate of mine, it's an LG (details deleted), black in colour with a kind of dragon motif on the back below the camera, lost on a route (withheld for the privacy of my mate) bus last night, around 10 pm or so. Can you tell me if anything like that was logged in as lost property last night when the bus came back in the depot?"

"Sorry, sir, I can't check the register right now; can you call back later?"

"Not really, I'm at work"

"Well, I can call you back if you like?"

"Yeah, that'd be great, thanks; the number's (censored)"

"Oh, you work for (he actually knew the phone number of the bus company I work for)?"

"Yeah, I'm in Customer Services at the moment"

"OK, well, tell the truth, we've had a bit of a cock up. Some twit sent our lost property register along with the last batch of stuff we sent to London Buses Lost Property last week by mistake, and we're still waiting for it to be returned!"

Cue me falling off my chair laughing my backside off!

What a way to start the Bank Holiday Weekend...

So. We've lost Ken, and gained Boris. Call me somewhat cynical, but even when the Tories have said that they're going to improve public transport, they've slashed it with wild abandon. Boris, old boy, be ye on notice: We workers on the buses are watching. That's not just from me: Everyone I've spoken to on the buses of late have been wondering just what changes (aside from your promising to get rid of the bendy buses) you're going to try to make, and what it's going to cost the industry.

Say what you like about Ken, he did OK by us.

I hope that we can say the same about you in four years time, but I have my doubts. You're a blue rosette bearer, after all, and that colour hasn't exactly got a good record when it comes to Public Services, has it?

Be honest now, 'cause we're watching!