There are not enough hours in the day.

The Institute of FishCool Studies is a think tank that I set up together with my colleagues, Happy and Lippy-2 to make our own impact on the new coalition government policy.

For the story of how we were formed, see my previous post here: http://readpole.blogspot.com/2010/10/right-wing-fish-tank.html

The IFCS team have been working on a way to improve productivity and have come up with an exciting idea to revolutionise the use of working time and improve productivity by up to 33%.

We start with the premise that the drastic public spending cuts would not need to be so severe if growth were higher.

Some people in a meeting
The crux of the issue is an intuitive truth for anyone who works in management or in an office environment, that meetings are not as productive as they could be.

There are many training courses available to help managers run meetings more effectively and get more out of meetings covering attendees, prioritisation, agenda setting, chairing and so on.

But it would not be affordable to roll out a national training programme and there is a high risk that the knowledge would not make it into practice as anyone who has attended such a course will attest.

So we started to think of how meetings tend to be scheduled in hour long slots (or multiples of) whether or not an hour is required to do the business. This practice is widespread and is really based on an arbitrary division of time into hours based on the position of the sun throughout the day or possibly based on how many finger segments we have (for a discussion on this theory see Why are there 24 hours in a day from James.lab6.com). Whatever the reason for having hours of 60 minutes, it is not based on any meaningful estimate of a good period of time for which to hold a meeting.

Sumarians making out - they could be responsible for dividing the day into 24 because they counted finger segments instead of fingers? It's 'Time' to right that wrong.

So, with our hour mapped out for us, we tend to take time to 'small talk' at the beginning of a meeting rather than getting down to business because we have plenty of time. What's worse is we might use up more time than necessary towards the end of the meeting, rather than closing the meeting down when the meeting has run it's course.

Our proposal is to increase the number of slots in a working calendar by shortening the slots from 60 minutes to 45 minutes - hence the claim of a 33% increase in productivity. After 45 minutes the quality of thinking will be deteriorating anyway and we are likely to be covering old ground. We propose it is better to move onto a new 'slot' and make sure we cover the ground in the time we have available - that's what we do with our full hours currently.

A have a colleague who has tried to shorten her meetings to 45 minutes but uses the 'spare' 15 minutes as a buffer between slots. This means they tend to be used to prepare for meetings, check emails or even as slack for the previous 45 minute meeting to run into. So there are no more decision meeting slots in the day or the week - just a bit of padding, which is potentially just waste.

Our Microsoft Outlook calendars (and similar IT systems or even paper diaries and calendars) lead meeting planners to continue the practice of booking meetings to run to the end of the hour when less time would do. There even the dividing lines in the calendar and the default time when we create a new appointment is 30 minutes - which never seems enough so we end up with an hour.

Working weeks are currently split into about 35-40 hours, about 7 or 8 per day. We propose that the working week in divided into 50 time slots of 45 minutes, that's 10 for each day. We call these time slots 'Fiddies' (after Fiddy Cent - our thanks for the name go to Twitter's @iamchads).

Fiddy - notice the wristwatch, he aint late for no meetings.

As well as offering more 'slots' to work in, this has the advantage of letting you know how far through the working week (or day) you are in the decimal units that we can understand. All we need to do is double the number (to find the semi-fiddy - 100 semi-fiddies in a week) and that is what percentage through your week you are.

Consider the following example: My PA receives a phone call from someone asking to meet me for lunch. Lunch slots are Fiddy5, Fiddy15, Fiddy25, Fiddy35 and Fiddy45. Fiddy25 gets booked - this is Wednesday lunch time exactly halfway through the week (Fiddy25 x 2 = 50 semi-fiddies = 50% of the week). You might be thinking a fiddy isn't long enough to have lunch, but we could book two, or even a number of minutes as we do currently. The important thing is that the default slot is reduced.

The fiddy system also lends itself to allocating the time in a week. If you want to aim to spend 60% of your time talking to your staff, coaching, monitoring, delegating and the like, this is 60 semi-fiddies or 30 fiddies you should book out with your people. Or it's 6 of your 10 a day.

When I put my son to bed tonight, he asked me how many hours it was until Santa came. Assuming he'd visit us at about 2am on Christmas day I estimted about 582 hours.

Then I wanted to know how many Fiddies it was. I did the ratio of 1.33 and estimated 774 fiddies until Santa came. But then I realised that this was wrong and in a moment of inspiration, I rushed back to the Institute (my study) to tell the team (my goldfish). Fiddies, we decided, should only to be used for working time. There are no fiddies in a weekend (not in mine anyway) and there are only 50 in a week. This now has the added benefit of separating the ever destructive 'work-life balance' blur. So I have 3 weeks and 3 days, only 180 Fiddies until Christmas.

Santa to visit in 180 Fiddies time (pic from NORAD).

This change will only work if it is given support by the government. It will be viewed as an infrigement of civil liberties or heavy handed dictation from the state, but the alternative is the savage spending cuts we face today, which represent far greater infringements. The government are already toying with the idea of messing with the clocks and are giving us an extra bank holiday for the Royal Wedding next year. We at the Institute for FishCool Studies are not proposing to steal any time from the people, we are giving it back.

Right Wing Fish Tank

There are two fish living in my study - they're called Happy and Lippy and we won them at a hook-a-duck stall and took them away in a plastic bag.

When we got them home, having spent £25 on the equipment to house these otherwise 'free' fish, I had an inspiring plan to get a return on my investment and have more influence over public policy with this hotch-potch of a Government, that nobody voted for, but who were about to go ballistic on the economy's ass.

Yes - I was going to set up one of these Right Wing Think Tanks that had the ear of the Government and were the source of some of the craziest ideas that were lining up to get implemented as policy. My plan was to appear Right Wing but to subvert more progressive ideas in the details. I already had the tank - now I needed the thinking.

I needed to give the fish an education and I did this by balancing my Economics text books up against the side of the tank - showing them one page per day, being careful not to rush them.

Now, I didn't think that either fish was of any particular political persuasion, more like a blank canvas waiting to be influenced and I wanted to use this to my advantage.


But then Lippy, the smaller of the two fish, started showing signs of being a bit too Party Political 'Liberal Democrat'. It came on slowly at first, Lippy would float right next to the other fish in supportive manner, as if a protege, he seemed to look up to the more confident 'Happy' but acted assertive in his own right - looking right out into the room and fighting for his turn at the food flakes. Eventually, however, the condition became critical and over a period of time Lippy went yellow, finally gave up all together and died.

Lippy was called Lippy because he had black marks around his mouth, like some kind of Goth/Punk lipstick. He belonged to my three year old daughter, so when Lippy died we opted out of the death conversation and pretended Lippy was having a sleep underneath the shell at the bottom of the tank. This 'sleep' lasted about a week, after which Lippy emerged, now slightly larger than Happy and without the lipstick. A bit like Jesus in a way - he did something with two fishes once didn't he?

Finally I could get back to my programme of creating a right wing think tank and there was no time to waste. During Lippy's sickness and 'sleeping time', we had already missed all of the Party Political Conferences, a new leader for Labour, several 'independent' reviews into Policy areas and even some leaked policies ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review, which now loomed like an emaciated spectre in the shadows.

The new Lippy learned fast and, what was more, he kept Happy on her toes. My new dream team really got into their stride, bouncing ideas off each other, working into the wee hours of the morning. We brainstormed a mood board, developed a strategy and really got our shit together.

Pictured above - the Dream Team hold a focus group that got particularly animated!

Fortunately 'Pets at Home' had convinced us that we must have filter to clean the water, so working into the wee hours and getting our shit together was not a problem.

One morning I came down stairs, walked into the study and there on my desk was a soaking wet document - With our proud logo emblazoned on the front and the title of the report.

The Institute of FishCool Studies
What is wrong with the world Vol.1.

I have never been so proud - now I had to get it read by 'The Powers That Be'

Find out what happened next time on...
ReadPole

Low Cut Tops in Readers Letters.

Dear Sirs,

I would like to bring to your attention something that I found in the letters section of my local newspaper today while I was waiting to have my haircut.

It really is much better than anything I could write as an original blog post today and so I am going to reproduce it here in full, as it was written.

The important thing to note is that this is not a joke but a genuine letter from a reader. I have included a photograph below of the letter in situ, which I took in the Barbers in the hope that I could share it straight away on Twitter.

But alas the picture was too blury and I can ony hope that a good number of people on Twitter bother to have a look. If you think it's worth a look, please RT the link. Thanks. DPx

Never mind shorts - what about low cut T-shirts?

RECENTLY you published a letter from a reader, ...August 4, decrying the disgusting shorts so many people wear nowadays.

How I agree. But what about other clothing trends?

Just the other day I was cycling through the town centre when I spied several young women, (I dare not use the term ladies), wearing low cut T-shirts.

The shock ofthis gross disregard for public morals distracted my attention, causing me to collide with the stationary vehicle ahead of me.

Having been thrown from the saddle, I received a grevious blow from the crossbar.

This should never have happened.

Even on the hottest day, my dear wife wears at least three heavy cardigans and a guardsman coat, deterring unwelcome attention from passing predatory males.

We were married for several years before she exposed even her feet to me. In fact that is all I have ever seen of hers done us no harm.

We don't want to live in a world where even older people suggestively flash their hairy legs, varicose veins and skin disorders to all and sundry.

Bring on Armageddon we say.

Mike T*******

Either there is a future or current serial killer in town.

Or some joker sent it in and the editor thought it was worth a laugh or that it was 'grey area' enough to be real.

I will furiously deny all rumuors that I wrote this letter to the paper. Hmm low cut tops.

Now excuse me but I think my wife has passed out from overheating and I want to sneak a look at her ankles.

Post script: The next story was complaining about hairy chests in public (on men I presume) and the next was complaining about the more pressing matter of sandals "at least wear some darn socks with them!" Please, help I am trapped in a very strange town indeed.

Fri 30th July 2010 - Travelling, Beavers and Presedential Coups

This is the first of a series of short (this was the intention) posts covering the holiday that I've just got back from.

My family and I went to stay with my parents in Essex for a week last week. After a day at work I set off in the car with my two daughters on Friday evening about 8:15pm. My Wife and my Son were to join us on Sunday, as they were both involved in Chamboree . This was a big deal and in the end we had to accept the diary clash and the fact we were taking two cars across the country to keep both commitments, it had been hard enough fitting everything into all the School Summer Holidays and this was the best compromise.

I don't know much about it but Chamboree is some kind of mega international scouting camp that was being hosted in Cheshire, where we live. For the hard core fully fledged Scouts, it only finished yesterday but for my son as a cub, it was a two night camp and my wife (a parent helper in Beaver scouts) only all day Sunday with no camping for the little ones.


It is worth noting that I always call Beavers (which is Cubs for the under sevens) 'Beaver Scouts' these days. My wife started helping when our son was a Beaver, he has moved on to Cubs now but my wife enjoyed helping and has stayed on. Initially the innuendos amused me, I even put 'Beavers' in my work calendar every Wednesday night because I had to leave work relatively early to enable my wife to help. It was okay to start with saying, "it's Beavers tonight" "My wife does Beavers" "My wife is a Beaver helper". I didn't go fnar fnar, ooer or weyhey, it was a place of work after all and one where I have certain responsibilities to set a good example. Also Beavers was about children so you can't really go there anyway and I couldn't be so crude. I did leave the suggestion of innuendo hanging there for anyone to pick up though - lingering and waiting for them to say something themselves - I was just dieing for someone to have a little smirk with - unfortunately this seemed to be a non-smirking office (soz). The trouble, I suppose, was that no one did pick up this innuendo to my face, so over time I became worried that I'd driven it underground (or more accurately behind my back) although it's just as likely that no one thought Beaver was a suggestive word anyway (right?).

This is in the UK, however, and it is still a national pastime and an easy source of humour to think that everything sounds a bit like it might be about sex (or toilets) and make faces and noises like the years of 'Carry On' film heritage taught us. So now I say Beaver Scouts, which takes the edge off. If I'm talking to a group of more than one males with no women about, I will avoid 'Beaver' altogether (oooer) and say Cubs or Scouts.


Anyway on with the journey. Route planning programmes say that this journey would be about 3 hours 30 mins, so I was keen to bet I was going at a relatively quiet traffic time I thought and I was sure I could better the speed assumptions as over half the journey was on motorway - including the whizzy empty M6 Toll(Midland Expressway).

I would have done quite well too, except as I got to where we join the motorway, I went north instead of south by force of habit from when I used to commute and added a good half an hour onto my journey - doh!

Okay, this is getting boring. The worst ice breaker at a party, if you meet someone new or who you don't know that well is the how you got there conversation. I try very hard to avoid this these days, although it is a sticky trap to fall into. At a recent gathering round our house, I nearly caught myself talking about what route someone had taken and I caught it in time. I am proud to say I steered out of it and within minutes I had learned (amongst other things) that this guy's uncle was the first President of a certain West African Country. I won't name the country, although there can't be that many options (see map), bad form and all that. What I can say is that Uncle got to the Presidential Palace by driving along the B1148, in a tank (I joke - there was an election and then some electional reform making the Uncle party the only legal party -but we've all done it haven't we?). The weather is the other 'trap topic' - it was mostly sunny in this West African Country.

Apart from that hiccup where I went to wrong way, the journey went well and I managed to achieve Google Maps target after all. When we got there the girls stayed up for another half hour or so and very late my mother fed me a lot of food - because that's one of the things that mums are for. I stayed up very late doing belated #followfridays and catching up on Twitter.

Coming next - Our trip to Colchester Zoo! (which road would we take?)

Firearms and firey legs: A Camping Tale of the Unexpected

At the weekend 15 of us went camping on a farmers field. The facilities consisted of a toilet block which was 200 yards down the road and that was it. I didn't discover that toilet block until Saturday.

It was our first chance to use our new tent outside of our garden - see picture above in which I have included a 2pence coin to show how big it is. Unfortunately it was an enourmous 2p coin and I also have a very big thumb. I thought the other two families were camping experts that we could learn from, but it turned out we were all quite new to it - especially to the type of camping with so little facilities.

Soon after we arrived, at about 7pm on Friday night, I set off back out in the car to find water. The sign at the gate of the field said pay at the farm and there was an arrow to the left. I drove down the road and a very short distance there was a sign for a farm and I turned onto a very bumpy track that nearly wrecked my car. I passed one house that was for sale, it didn't look very farm like, and then another that looked too posh to be a farm and then the track got even more bumpy. I wondered if I might get stuck but was feeling a bit gung ho so I ventured on.

Finally I arrived at a ramshackled set of buildings that were definately a farm, there was a dog barking its head off but otherwise the place was eerily deserted. I walked around the fenced garden of the farmhouse, trying to calm the dog as I went and walked up the mud track a little further. I heard a snuffle in a delapidated barn and turned to see a single pig lying in the dark. I thought maybe the farmer was out and I would look round for some water but I couldn't find any so I headed back to my car - with the dog barking all the while.

Just before I reached my car I heard the creak of a door behind me and swung round to see a woman with matted grey wild looking hair and a shotgun under her arm. "Whatchoo waant?" she barked like her dog. "I just came for some water" I said slightly raising my hands (I had learned what to do from the movies!). "I thought we were camping in your field" I added.

"Caamping? Pergh!" she said - "You should be back there" she pointed with a gnarled finger "go to 'da howse at de end of me drive on the left".

"yes - sorry" I said, well it is hard to remember what I said, as I was very scared. As I drove away I slightly ducked my head down as if my headrest would stop the shot from the gun (I also learned this from the movies).

The house I should have gone to was the one that I thought had looked too 'posh' before. I pulled into the drive and tentatively called out hello - there were dogs barking at each other here too. I saw someone up on a balcony or roof terrace area of a property that was opposite the main house and I said "Hello, I think we're camping on your field?" "No, I wish" said the guy in shorts - "we're just renting this place from them and they've gone to the pub". I explained that I wanted some water and the guy replied that the farmer had said there was an outside tap down where I was standing. I found the tap, filled the two water containers and headed back to the field.

Despite the lack of facilities and the life threatening neighbours, I still had a good time. The best thing was the fantastic views of the Derbyshire Peaks from the high vantage points. We went climbing up high and ate wild blueberries while the children played on the rock formations, which made them look just like baboons you might see in a safari park.

There was a downside, I did feel an underlying bed of tension that I would imagine happens in the Big Brother house. Mainly was absoutely my own problem, because I was worried about what other people were thinking about how much I was helping out or the lack of facilities. I think I spent 20% of the time I was awake washing up though, so some contribution there, but I was always worried that I was making myself cups of tea without offering everyone else. No big deal, but I think I measure myself by being able to make tea for other people.

One advantage of not having lots of facilities on the camp site was that we were able to have a real fire. Although all the signs said no fires, barbeques only. The signs actually said BBQs in drippy paint and they were placed everywhere you might go to collect wood, if you were prepared to brave what must've also been the natural emergency toilet areas. But we had approval from the farmer to have a real fire, as long as it was raised off the ground in a fire pit, which we had.

On saturday night, everyone was quite tired and went to bed fairly early but I stayed up to watch the fire and make my selfish teas. Earlier in the evening the grass under the firepit has ignited and I'd had to stamp it out in a hurry, burning my leg in the process. I felt a bit like this event had worried one of our number as they slept in their tent, near to my fire, and I think they might have sent their husband out to make sure I was going to put it out.

Anyway I had a lovely chat with this fellow who I think might have been sent out to check on me, somehow we got onto wondering how man or his ancestors discovered fire as we watched.

In the absense of the internet I started proposing my own theories. I say without internet but if the battery on an iPhone was any better than useless I could have enjoyed the glorious 3G light that the farmers field was unexpectedly bathed in.

Fire had obviously existed naturally and probably been something to be feared my mans ancestor to start with. It might have occured from lightening storms, forest fires or (most controllable) areas where lava was close to the surface.

My first theory was that it was an accidental thing - some cave men types would probably have discovered a crispy deer in an area where there'd been a forest fire and thought "Ug this is goood stuff" - "Ug I need that red fire." "Ug - I'm tired of monkeying around."

[About that Jungle Book song - Louis the Orang Utang is obviously an ape rather than a monkey and to sing 'I'm tired of monkeying around' would be at best inappropriate and at worst downright racist and inciteful to his kind.=

Then I thought it was unlikely that man chose to harness the power of fire just to cook food. Surely they had it for warmth and protection from the animals who remained fearful of fire, and the discovery of cooking food came from someone carrying food tripping and dropping the food in the fire. Then all the others said

"Ugg DAVE! Ug I can't believe you dropped all the flesh in the red burny"
and then they beat Dave with a club and pushed him in the fire - later good flesh and crispy Dave was enjoyed by all. Later after much fun and dancing, much goo was spashed up the wall. (callback to a previous post Sperm Wars).

As we mused about how fire was discovered I suddenly realised there was someone standing behind me - "harvin' a good toim?" It was the Farmer. We chatted for a while about what we'd been up to and paid the farmer for our stay (very reasonable £2 per person per night).

It transpired that the house I had gone to for the water wasn't his farm at all - he was further down the main road. I explained where I got the water from, "the new looking brick house down that track" you could see the beginning of the track from where we were.

"Oh yes, the one at the end" said the farmer "Well no - not quite at the end" I said "the track keeps going after that house and there's another farm there".

"Oh yes" he said and then he paused, I could here him breathing through his nose.
"Well there used to be, but noone's liven there since crazy ol' Dorothy Frederick died"

Now I don't know if the farmer didn't know that someone was living there now, or if I'd seen Dorothy on Friday night but I wasn't going back to find out.

I did a little dance in front of the fire that night. In the style of Tales of the Unexpected.

Freshly Pressed Jeans at the RHS Tatton Show

Today my wife and I went to the RHS Tatton Show and had such a great day.

In the morning I was very nervous about what to wear because I thought it was probably a bit posh - The RHS the Royal Hoitytoity Society perhaps?

But then I put my mind at rest, telling myself that it's about flowers and gardens so there would probably be some rustic gardener types there, so I wouldn't stand out as an oik. But then I overheard my wife telling a friend on the phone that there was some kind of dress code "Freshly Pressed Jeans and Wellies!" so the pressure was back on, and so was the iron.


Eventually I thought I'd do and we set off to crawl through the traffic that was already building up on the way to the show. We drove through the incredible Tatton park with it's magnificent views of rolling green fields, woods and lakes; sheep and deer and arrived at the show.

I was constantly checking out what people was wearing in case I was too scruffy and, although many people were in their English Sunday best, there were enough people dressed similar to me to stop me worrying.

SILVER GUILT
When we got through the gates we found a tent where there were flower design displays, one of the main reasons we'd come was to see flower designy things. There were about ten large display stands and I noticed there were awards on them Gold, Silver - I didn't see any Bronze but we were walking past a display with a 'Silver Gilt' award and I thought maybe Bronze was too distasteful so they used 'Silver Gilt'. I remarked to my wife "What's silver gilt then, worse than silver?" At which point a woman spun round and barked "no it's BETTER than silver, Better." This woman, who was obviously connected to the display, calmed herself and proceeded to tell me that silver gilt was 'very nearly gold' and that it would have been a gold award if only they'd send them the right colour carpet for the stand. I could tell this was very serious business so I duly complemented her on the work and moved on as soon as politely possible.

One of the stalls (Verdure Floral Design) had a very impressive set of designs inspired by the work of famous artists. Pictured above are two of them: The yellow one in the background is inspired by Banksy and the one in the foreground that looks like a close up of Kermit's anus is imspired by Barbara Hepworth.

From a quick trip to the portaloos at which I learned that posh people still piss on the floor and flower people's toilets DO NOT smell of flowers - we moved on for a look round.

NODDY AT THE FAIR
The atomosphere was really good, there was a band playing in a Pavillion with a man doing super speedy trombone playing to the William Tell overture. The announcements coming from the main PA system were done in such a old England, 'Cricket on the village green' kind of voice that it reminded me of a record I had as a child, in which Noddy had a sports day and the announcer commented in a similar voice "and Bigears has dropped the egg in the egg and spoon race..." I love it when sounds and smells transport you back in time like that.

I had a check round for how freshly pressed other people's jeans were.

We had a look round and found...

The German Tourist Board (random).








A lawn lower stall manned by the Jeremy Clarkson's of the gardening world.









A plant called Laurus Nobilis (hee hee - Deedpole purileus)
COFFEE STALL CHAOS
I could smell coffee coming from the stalls and I had to get some while my wife went on to find the British Floristry Association tent.

I joined the queue at a coffee stall. The stall had three window sections each headed with a different sign saying what the stall sold. One to the left said 'SOFT DRINKS' the centre section had 'SANDWICHES AND CAKES' and the one on the right said 'COFFEE AND TEA'.

This is important to describe, because there was chaos at this stall as it was very busy and the polite English clientele had decided between them that there should be three queues, one for each window. I joined the middle queue. After a while a rumour jumped from queue to queue that you had to join the queue with the sign that said what you wanted to buy, and 'how ridiculous' this was and 'what if I want a drink and a sandwich?' exasperated comments went round but nobody spoke up to ask what we should be doing.

I craned my neck to see the front and realised the middle queue, which by now I'd nearly got to the front of, had no cashier at it and then I heard the guy behind the counter say 'there's actually only two queues' (of course he meant 'there's only supposed to be two queues - there was in fact still three).

Word went round again and we split into two queues - I worked out that (as I had suspected) the signs were just general advertisements of what the stall sold and not instructions about where to queue for what goods as the earlier rumour had suggested. This hadn't been realised by some other customers, who were still grumbling and joining one queue while sending their friends to the other queue - to ensure they had all the food and drink types covered.

Luckily this chaos, that on any other day might have quite stressed me out, was delighting and entertaining me, as I watched people trying to fathom out the system and all the while being so polite and gracious to each other.

HELLO MUM I'M AT THE FLOWER SHOW!
Coffee and cakes secured, I went on to find my wife in the very professionally organised marquee run by the British Floristry Association. This housed the "prestigious" Eurofleurs competition, in which young florists from across Europe compete.
There was a big stage with a cat walk coming out of it with a QVC infomercial-style floristry demonstration going on. I was genuinely impressed with the production and presentation skills of the 'anchorman' - who was like Dale Winton and his roving reporter (only roving as far as the other end of the Marquee to report on the eurofleurs entries), who was like a slightly camp Gene Wilder and kept talking about magnificent pionieses (sounds like penis but are flowers).

The TV show cut from the main demonstration on the big stage with the (as yet unused) catwalk, to the roving reporter who was talking us through two countries at a time from the Eurofleurs competition. The camera pictures were being beamed onto giant screens at the sides of the main 'catwalk' stage.
When the demonstrations had finished, bizarrely some scantily-clad dancing girls came out and started prancing around to music (pictured). I couldn't really make the connection with flowers but I suppose it was just entertainment to get people into the tent, or something for the men?

Later, I managed to walk behind some of Europe's up-and-coming florists being interviewed on the camera and give a little wave for the seated crowd's benefit and to embarrass my wife (after all, she had dared me into it, by calling my bluff when I suggested I would go and wave at her on the big screen).

GOLLY FLOWERS
Later we went to see the prize fruit and vegetables. I knew this was taken particularly seriously by gardeners. I learned how to make carrots go even more orange and happened upon what was described as the "Most Meritorious Dish Of Vegetables Judged In The Competition" as we looked at these amazing collies and remarked how white they were, a woman behind us said in a posh voice "yes, they're not Collie Flowers, they're Golly Flowers". I bet she says that every year and really looks forward to it. So rarely do you get to hear a joke that relies on a pun of the word 'Golly' - I love the Tatton Show for this! I would like to have said "Yes and that's not just Maize, it's fucking amaizing" that would have given her a new joke for next year.





LUNCH AT FORTUM & MASON

We had booked to have lunch at Fortnum & Mason which was very good but not without complications. Firstly they tried to say that we were too late for lunch but we argued our way into a late sitting since we had booked and the staff were very good about it. Then at the end of the meal when it was time to pay there was a long queue and the card machines weren't working well. There were lots of people in the queue complaining about long waits, wrong orders and not being able to have the lunch menu they'd booked (as had nearly happened to us).

Having to queue to pay seemed to be a bit of a nolvelty to some of the customers (who must have never been to a Wetherspoons or a Bernie Inn) and some were threatening to leave without paying if they had to wait any longer. I did feel sorry for the staff that were fending off and dealing with the complaints, but I felt a little proud that the English, notorious for not complaining, had found their mettle and were getting stuck in.

Our own problem was having to wait about twenty minutes for the payment to go through. At one point the internet connection was lost and I had to put my PIN in a second time. I made them check that my payment hadn't already gone through. Now we've got home we have found that we have been charged twice. We are now complaining and hopeful of getting a full refund of both payments or a free meal on another occassion. They certainly seemed very responsive to complaints and making amends. It's one of those companies that prize customer service but their systems really let them down today.

It didn't ruin the experience though because we weren't really in a rush. This was typical of the whole day, it was such a good atomosphere that any glitches that might otherwise have been a problem, just looked like an 'experience' to me of what life could be like if we all just freshly pressed our jeans, queued nicely and said Golly just a bit more often.

Mysterious Power Cuts

We have been having mysterious power cuts at home. What makes them mysterious? Well they're power cuts - power cuts are always mysterious aren't they?

Our house is a bit isolated so it's easy to get paranoid. I wouldn't be paranoid if it wasn't for the fact that everyone in the entire world is out to get me. But there are some more specific things that are strange about the power cuts too.

Firstly the power cuts always happen in fair weather, previously I've only ever known them happen in stormy weather when you can assume that a tree has blown over and broken a power line or something.

Related to the fair weather, is the fact that the power cuts only last about two minutes or even less. If there was a proper old fashioned power cut from the olden days, which I have based my entire knowledge of power cuts on, the power would be out for hours and we would definately need to find some candles.

Another thing is that the street lights go out at the same time. On the basis of a half remembered facts from years ago, I thought that street lights were on a completely different circuit and it would be impossible for both our house and the street lights to go out. So that, and all of these reasons, make me suspicious.

There can only be one explanation - I just don't know what it is.
But it could be one of these:

[A] - We are going to be attacked by living humans.
(1) We are going to be attacked by baddies who are very organised and well equipped baddies (like off of Spooks or 24 or one of the Tom Clancy books or films)
(i) They are attacking us because they have mistaken us for someone else who knows something or is a goodie spy.
(ii) We have not been mistaken for goodie spies or people who know something, but we do know something or we are spies. Either my wife knows something and hasn't told me, maybe she's a sleeper? Or maybe I know something and I didn't realise how important it was at the time I learned it. I don't think I am a spy though - if I am I'm a sleeper in a very deep sleep.

(2) We are going to be attacked by goodies. These could be CIA, MI5 or MI6 or maybe some maverick goodie who's had their licence revoked or been double crossed by a mole in their ranks
(i) We are about to be attacked because we've been mistaken for baddies - maybe they'll torture us because they know we know something, but we don't know anything. But people who know things would say that wouldn't they, so they'll keep torturing us and oh what a pickle we'd be in then. In the end they'd have to kill us because if nothing else we'd be witness to a terrible injustice.
(ii) We're going to get attacked because we are baddies - in fact see [A](1)(ii) above, the implications are similar.

[B] Ghosts are causing the power cuts

(1) Trapped souls are lurking about - like on 'The Others' [SPOILER] they don't know they're dead (come on you must've seen that film by now).
These types would be causing power failures and surges without even realising it I reckon. They would probably be nice ghosts - I don't mind them until they start moving my tea bags.

(2) Malevolent mischievous conscious ones - like those ones who are a bit nasty to TV's Yvette Fielding from Most Haunted (especially back in the day when Derek Acorah was there being really horrible to her - funny how when she got rid of Derek the nasty, woman hating ghosts didn't seem to come so often).
Ghosts seems to like the dark better don't they? So they would want to turn the lights out so they can bump things and make shapes in the shadows and spook us out. That would be yet another plausible explanation to add to our list.

[C] Aliens

Fucking Aliens again! I knew it. There is no other explanation. We live next door to a corn field where they like to make circles, another neighbouring field has cows in it, we know aliens like to molest cows. In fact the aliens were probably trying to get the lighting right for a bit of cow loving, dirty bastards. Well case solved. At least they're not after me and from the look of those cows, they like it. You should see how erect their teats are.

Anyway these power cuts are putting the willies up me (there's a new theory - someone is causing power cuts so they can put willies up me - I bet it's the aliens, dirty, dirty aliens).