The Bells.

Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clement's, You owe me five farthings say the bells of St. Martin's.
All very lovely and very poetic, but church bells are not quite what they used to be. Well not in Chelmsford at least.
Church bells are believed to have come to use in the Christian churches about the year 400 although the sounding of bells goes back well beyond that date back into an age when the bell was the loudest sound around and could be used to call the faithful the pray or warn of impending danger.

The world has changed just a trifle since those days, yet as I walked into the town at the weekend the cathedral bells were ringing.
Against the traffic noise, the rumble of a thousand shoppers and the nearby station public address announcing the 10.15 to Liverpool Street, the sound was anything but poetic or melodic.
The bell ringers, safely protected from the noise within the centuries old stone bell tower, were desperately trying to produce their designated peel but always someone was just a little bit early or late resulting in the impression that Les Dawson was involved somewhere.
Chelmsford was listed in a recent survey of noisy cities, although its not officially a city so someone got that wrong too, and listening to the row from the cathedral bells it is no wonder. What a terrible din. In a world that is full of so much noise church bells no longer have a place, I suggest that an ASBO is needed as soon as possible.

Can you do something for me - please?

I know we all hate chain letters and definitely hate spam emails so there are no bad events if you don't do this, and once you have you don't have to tell anyone else, although if you want to feel free.

The theory goes that if everyone tells two other people something and those two people tell another two etc that within 25 steps everyone on the planet will know the information. It works on paper but reality is going to be different I am sure.
Not everyone on the planet has the Internet but come on lets give it a go and see how many hits from different places we can get on this site.
Give two people this blog address, either pass it to them on a piece of paper, email two friends or just in conversation and ask them to visit the blog and read this posting.
I make nothing out of this, the web site makes nothing and there are no hidden catches its just a bit of fun. The site hit counter will let us know how this goes.

Now here is a Great Idea

I have an amazing idea, it solves two problems in one hit. I thought of it while on holiday a couple of weeks ago and its so simple I just can not believe no one is doing it already. Its brilliant, although I know I should not say so myself such a great idea.
Oh sorry, I should share it with you so you can decide how great it is, but I get carried away at the mere thought of the idea.
My idea is this, graffiti fat people. No, not with me, well let me explain.

Thousands, maybe millions, of pounds a year is spent cleaning off graffiti from walls, phone boxes, underpasses, you name it someone will graffiti it.
Not all graffiti is bad, there is an old coal yard not far from me that displays some very good graffiti that is always worth a look when I am cycling in the area.

So, and this is the really clever bit, a lot of very fat people are an eye sore. You know what I mean, rear the size of an elephant, blotting out the light as they lumber along denting the pavements in lycra, burger fat dribbling off their chins. If I had my way I would make them stay in their houses until after dark, but my idea changes all this. They provide an enormous free canvas for graffiti artists. Granted we may need to persuade them into cotton rather than lycra so the paint doesn't run but its a win win situation.

If the graffiti is good then it will help to reduce the pain of seeing the fat people wobbling about all over the place, and if it is bad then given time it will wobble away saving the council the expense of cleaning walls.

If you are in any way offended by this idea, then lay off the burgers and go for the salad option for a few weeks and you should be safe.

The Last and Final Call

I was at the airport the other day and found myself listening to the announcements that were being made for other flights.
"Bong Bing, this it the final call for flight BMX500 to Scunthorpe, would all remaining passengers please go immediately to gate 24"
Fair enough, nothing wrong with that.
Then 3 minutes later - "Bong Bing, this is the last and final call for the last remaining passengers on BMX500 ....... " Nope, I can't take that, we just had the final call so by its very definition there won't be another call.
Yet there were a further 4 calls which got worse. "Bong Bong (OK Ill stop that bit now, take it as there) "This is the final call for the last remaining passenger Miss Dit on flight BMX500 please go to gate 24 where your gate is closing and your flight is awaiting an immediate on time departure"
Now I am not sure which part of that one annoyed me the most, we are still having final calls and they just said it was an immediate departure so that means, well immediate, so if they are waiting for the woman then its not going to be departing immediately and probably not on time, is it.
If people don't know that once they have checked-in at an airport they have to actually go and get on a place you have to wonder if they should be allowed on anyway. If they need to be called 4 times then just maybe it would be safer to leave them behind, because you only get the safety briefing once and I could be depending upon Miss Dit to remember to keep walking in the direction of the lights until she comes to an exit. I certainly hope not.

Time for Coffee

It has been some time since I worked in an office, but has some one banned kettles?
Health and safety bans most things these days but surely if an adult is there to supervise its use, is a kettle really that dangerous.
My reason for asking is that everywhere I go, especially in cities and large towns, there are people in office clothes stumbling about with paper trays of StarSlops or Costaload coffees.

Obviously in a rush, so the rapidly cooling coffee is still drinkable when they get to the office, they look like demented waiters who have forgotten which table ordered the starters.
It must be quite disconcerting for office managers, or first level supervisors or whatever they are today, someone shouts out "who wants a coffee" then vanishes for 20 minutes, joins a queue at the coffee house 10 minutes away to return with 8 paper cups with plastic lids balanced precariously in folding cardboard tray holders, they fight their way backwards into the office through the super heavy sprung fire doors, shouting "coffees here" only to hear that the meeting upstairs has just finished and another 6 cups are needed.
Why has Britain, the country of "the kettles on", adopted this very American ritual for coffee.
For one thing coffee from paper mugs never tastes anything like coffee, and secondly how much does all this cost. I don't suppose you get many skinny, semi-decaf , extra foam, less fat, fair trade capuchinos with extra smile from the £2 a week coffee club I used to belong to.
I expect it has removed the arguments about who's turn it is to wash the cups, and combined with a smoke break that has to be taken standing outside the front of the office it begins to look like a real alternative to work.
But if I ever go back to working in an office I want my coffee in a proper mug, made with yesterdays milk and stirred with a dirty tea spoon, now that's more like it.