Moving!

Mr Grumpy has moved! Go to http://mrgrumpyuk.wordpress.com

The quality of urban driving

Since Mr G has started driving the quality of driving on urban roads has declined dramatically.

And why?

Those stupid damned bumps all over the road!

Back in the days before bumps (BB) drivers used to follow a sensible and reasonable line along the road. Now it is a regular thing to see people swerving all over the road to try and get the bumps between their wheels. This means that when drivers were left to their own devices BB they would drive sensibly and reasonably, now they are turned into wild, almost unguided missile drivers.

And what do they have to do to achieve this roller-coaster ride? Of course they drive with their eyes glued to the road looking for the next bump. Any child running out, driver reversing myopically into the road, small eager puppy exploring - they don't get seen and don't stand a chance.

All this is in the name of "traffic calming". Does it work? Does it hell! Traffic travels just as fast as BB, but now following an erratic path and with little awareness of the environment.

Whoever thought of that has to have a vested interest in car repairs, funeral parlours, ambulances or all three. Or be a complete nutter!

My solution? Make the bloody things illegal, or at least require an individual act of parliament for each bump that is placed.

Mr Grumpy hasn’t been Grumpy for some time now. On Saturday night Mr & Mrs Grumpy entertained a lovely lady for the evening (well actually she entertained us, because she is extremely funny – she had us in stitches all evening. You know who you are Annie!) and in the course of discussion she persuaded Mr Grumpy that there is a perfect subject to get grumpy about.

Digital Radio.

The government, in its infinite wisdom decided that we should all go DAB and that analogue radio could be switched off, by around 2017. The new government have softened that target, but it is still their aim sooner or later.

Now that doesn’t sound like a bad plan – it is working quite well for TV, and having just experienced Freeview HD, I reckon the benefits of the changeover are beginning to be obvious.

But in fact it is a very stupid plan, for a number of reasons . Firstly, 5 years ago Mr Grumpy had a new car, and it had a DAB radio in it. And it was really very nice! Most of the time the quality was very good, and the range of available stations was attractive, especially to an ageing 70s rocker like Mr G, who enjoyed greatly both Planet Rock and The Arrow. And then 3 years later (being a contract hire car) Mr G had to change the car, and found that there were absolutely no affordable options with factory fitted DAB. One of the cars could have DAB fitted as an optional extra, but at a large and unacceptable premium.

So this means that the percentage of cars on British roads with DAB is very small indeed. And given the lifetime of the average car and the lack of drive towards fitting DAB the percentage is going to be small by 2017 too.

Mr G examined post-delivery DAB adaptors, given that factory fitted radios are rarely a standard size and can’t be replaced like-for-like. There was only one realistic choice on the market, and fitting it was a kludge to say the least! And it sits on the dashboard in full view of any passing thieving scroat!

But for all those limitations, DAB is a good thing isn’t it? Well no, apparently not! An embarrassingly large number of stations have appeared on DAB and then left over the years because advertising revenues couldn’t support them and there was little prospect that they would in future. So we are left with a fairly uninspiring list of stations that are copies of national and regional FM stations.

But the quality is amazing, isn’t it?? Well, unfortunately no! Because the Powers that Be want to squeeze as many stations as possibly into the available medium they have made some fairly tight decisions about how much bandwidth to allow them. And this is beginning to mean that some stations (notably BBC Radio 3, Classic FM etc) are actually technically better on FM than DAB. What a way to get people to change!

Still – DAB is the future, so it must be good. No it isn’t! Actually the future is DAB+, and it is entirely incompatible with DAB radios. And in fact DAB or DAB+ can’t be economically delivered to about 10% of the country, so we will need DRM and/or DRM+ (basically digital over Medium wave) which is different again!

Would you believe that there are estimated to be 150 million FM radios in use, and probably 5 million DAB radios. So that is 155 million radios ALL of which will become obsolete quite soon now. And the replacement is not up and running and no radios are available.

Impressed? Mr Grumpy thinks the England football team would do a better job, and plans to get his news from Paul the Octopus in future.

OK, I'm doing it!

How long have we had Chip and Pin in this country now? Well I'll tell you, it started around 2004, but the key day when cardholders had to be ready to use their PIN was 14th February 2006. So we have been using it regularly for a good four years now.

So why are we still being treated like PIN novices? Go to a supermarket till, and the cashier will scan all your items, then cheerfully announce the (usually frighteningly large) amount that you owe. You put your card in the PIN pad, and stand there with fingers poised. Then, when the machine tells you to "Enter PIN" you start to do just that.

It is usually around the time you press the second digit that the cashier chirps up "Can you pop your PIN in for me please?" Which makes me want to scream maniacally "I'm doing it!"

Even worse is those badly rehabilitated speak your weight machines - the self-service till. The carefully chosen anodyne voice of these tills will tell you to put your PIN in, sometime around the time you are re-sheathing your precious card, and tell you to remove your card sometime around the exit door.

Surely after 4 years of familiarity it would be reasonable for these machines, both mechanical and human, to only gently remind you about your PIN if you are manifestly not supplying it.

As a sideline, Mr Grumpy's recent experience at a car hire shed in Spain was a bit different. Some of my older readers will remember when credit cards used to be imprinted on hard toilet paper in a finger crushing machine. Well, in Spain I handed over my credit card and the man behind the desk solemnly got out his bit of toilet paper, laid it over my card and rubbed all over it with the end of a retracted ballpoint, like a brass-rubbing.

I called it Chap and Pen

Charity stays at home for far too long

I would be the first to admit that I don't know much about charity fund raising. But the economics and psychology of doorstep collection sacks completely defeat me.

At very regular intervals collection sacks are pushed through our door, presumably by volunteers from a range of charities. Recent ones have been Marie Curie and the British Heart Foundation. These sacks appeal for items that can be sold in their shops, and promise that they will be collected – full or empty – a few days later.

Most times when we receive these sacks we have nothing to give them – we are quite efficient at donating surplus stuff to our local Cornwall Hospice Care shop – if only to get it out of the house as promptly as possible! So the sacks go straight back on the doorstep for the promised collection.

And there they sit, for weeks at a time until we get fed up and throw them away.

Now, if ever we had stuff to donate we could use one of these sacks couldn't we?? Well no, because I would be afraid that our donated items would similarly sit on the doorstep for weeks at a time – presumably until we got fed up and took them to Cornwall Hospice Care.

Now, I can only presume that these sacks cost something to produce. And I presume that the cost of this production has to be met from the general funds of the charity. And if the sacks are never collected they never generate an income, and are a total waste of the charity's funds.

So what is it all about? Why do the charities do this? In my experience quite a few charities distribute the sacks, and almost none collect them. I would love to know the answer to this, because at the moment it just makes Mr Grumpy grumpy!

Seeing red

Well, you know how it is. When you start these things you have some ideas, and then after an initial flurry you suddenly don't have any ideas!

Yesterday Paul wished Mr Grumpy a happy birthday and I told him I was having a day off for my birthday - but really I had no ideas! Mr Grumpy was happy.

Then, late in the delay, a beautiful Scottish lady (Hi Annie) told me she liked my blog, so I had to come up with some inspiration, and finally at 11pm I saw red.

Red Onions!

By what law of the universe has it been declared in recent years that the staple diet of the entire population is the red onion? You just cannot eat out anywhere sensible without being assaulted by a deluge of the pungent globes.

Even something basic and ancient like a ploughman's comes with a little pile of sad looking garnish these days - and nestling in the fragrant green leaves, just behind the limp bit of sliced tomato is - the red onion pile. (Incidentally I gather the ploughman's was invented by the Milk Marketing Board in about 1920)

Now, those of you who like red onions may wonder what the problem is. But I detest red onions! No - to be fair, I am not racist. Colour is not the issue. It is raw onions I hate. It is merely the dictates of fashion that determine the red skinned variety as the target of my ire. I imagine some connoisseur will tell me that there are subtle differences in the cocktail of flavinoids, but as far as I am concerned they are equally detestable.

OK, I have to admit, many places are quite amenable to being asked to leave them out. The Deli in Camborne - no problem. Even Wetherspoons were happy to comply - although a moment of confusion arose when the server realised I hadn't actually ordered anything containing red onions - a rare achievement! Many other places however look on such a request as the outpourings of a deranged mind. Or even worse, they advise you that the salad has already been made up - for the week!

BUT WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO ASK???? Why should I have to remember that I will always get red onions unless I ask not to? Has it been declared by some benign government that we must have them for our health perhaps?? No, can't be. They tried to put flouride in our water but the outrage that such a proposal generated was scarily impressive. I wonder if the same outrage would have been generated if they had tried to apply red onion extract to our domestic water instead?

There is one class of eaterie where one can be fairly safe from such an onslaught - the gourmet restaurant. When you order larks tongues lovingly drizzled with aspic you get them on a bed of finely chopped endive and rocket, not red onion. And the terrine of lightly poached sucking termite's nostrils can usually be guaranteed free of the dreaded ingredient.

But wait - what do we find in such a restaurant? What does every dish contain whether you like it or not? And readers won't be surprised that I hate it just as much - GARLIC!

Aha - the answer at last! The plague of the red onion is a cosmopolitan Britain's answer to the plague of garlic. We felt that we needed to emulate the French but we just couldn't bring ourselves to do it their way - so we found something else to pervade everything with.

Where can I hide?

Changed colour

Gone green??? Well, my son Andy told me the pink didn't suit me. I thought it sort of represented a Mr Grumpy-like red mist, but he disagreed

Who am I to argue?