Alton Towers

Yesterday, as a birthday treat, Smiling Grump took me to Alton Towers with his cousin and a few friends. I'd never been to a theme park before and I've been looking forward to it for ages. Although I have been on a few small rollercoasters over the years, Alton Towers has the reputation of being one of the best places in the UK for such rides. 

The day started off great, got out of bed for 6:30am got everything sorted before setting off and only once slightly getting lost due to Smiling Grump's £25 iPhone Sat Nav App losing its GPS signal and having to resort to me reading a map. Once there we debated the merits of which rides to go on and how we should go about tackling the park, this was a recurring theme for the next few hours.  

However, during the afternoon we managed to experience the Tower of Terror, which was actually rather surprisingly good, actors dressed up in a dark castle, lots of frights and scares. We also managed to go on The Nemesis, although it was a good ride I thought it wasn't quick enough. Having now queued for over two hours for just two rides we decided to have a bit to eat then we split up to try and get as many rides as possible under our belts.

We managed to get on the Oblivion, which was short but it was a great rush due to the vertical drop, very much like the sensation of a bungee jump.  Then went to queue for Rita, the most popular ride by the waiting times. We'd queued for about an hour before the entire park was hit by a power outage, nothing was working for a time, so we decided to stick it out in the queue we were in in the hope that the power would be restored and that we'd get on the ride. However after a long time standing in the dark it became apparent that nothing was going to happen.

Power was restored to one part of the park, the family area, so the rides there were a bit twee, but because we had nothing better to do we went on a couple of the kiddies rides and visited their aquarium, which was impressive in my mind.

In the time we'd been enjoying the water features, power had been restored in other places on the park, but by the time we managed to walk back to the main area for the good rides it was already closing time! 😦

We did however have two more things to do, another couple of scary themed fright experiences, which were good, but not as impressive as the first one we went to at the beginning of the day.

So that was the end of the day, it was close to midnight and we'd managed to take in as few rides as possible due to the power failure but once we got back to the car we discovered that one of our crew had lost his car key. Much drama ensued, I just stayed in the other car and went to sleep.

Apparently he'd left the key in the door when he locked the car in the morning, a security guy found it and got it secured in the safe of the hotel, but having the safe unlocked took about an hour, not that I noticed as I was catching flies.

The drive home was uneventful for me, I was snoring peacefully, but it took much longer than usual due to an excessive amount of night-time roadworks along the motorways. I think we got home about 4 – 4:30am, secure in the knowledge that Smiling Grump will most likely be able to claim back the ticket fares due to nothing actually working at the theme park and aching all over due to walking miles all day.

Today, a trip to Cheltenham to look for Halloween bits and bobs, most likely a KFC, which I'd been looking forward to yesterday, but along with everything else was closed due to the power issue, and then we have a big fancy dress party in the evening.  An eventful couple of days, hope we don't have any issues tonight…lol

Thanks to Smiling Grump though, we did have a good time, even though it went disastrously, but it was obviously nobody's fault so we just made the best with what was on offer.  Not an ideal first visit to a theme park, but I certainly wont forget it. 

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16 Days of Constipation

No, not me but some Scouser that was held on a drugs charge in South Wales.

This little link will give you the full story. Apparently the guy was arrested on suspicion of supplying drugs in a police drugs bust, but none were found, but from reading the text messages on his mobile phone it was deduced that he'd stashed the heroin in condoms and swallowed them. What ensued was a sixteen day wait for the guy to produce the evidence needed to convict him 'at a huge expense to police time and resources'.

Now I'm not one to judge the criminal justice system, but surely a simple x-ray would have ascertained whether or not there were any little packages inside his colon, this would have saved a lot of time for the police and a lot of discomfort for the criminal. Having to wait nearly three weeks for him to take a dump seems a bit silly to me.

I'm also amazed by the guys willpower, I don't think I'd be able to hold on for even a fraction of that time. Just imagine not being able to take a shit for sixteen days! I think I may have gone a week or so once, but that was because I was severely ill in hospital and I hadn't eaten anything in all that time. Sixteen days of holding on! Jeeeeez…

I can only imagine what the toilet looked like when he finally decided that enough was enough.

I can also imagine the distaste of the poor officer who had to pick his way through the poo to find the heroin as well…

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Courting Controversy

A topic that some of you Twitter users will have been unable to avoid this week, from Jan Moir's (now edited) article about Stephen Gately's unnatural death by homo bum bashing to Nick Griffin's appearance on the BBC's Question Time. I suppose that both of these 'newsworthy' events warranted a little airtime, but certainly not the total takeover of the airwaves that occurred.

Riots ensued at several BBC offices around the country due to Griffin being asked to appear on Question Time, Twitter was overloaded, the media went into meltdown. Why? For those of you who are not conversant with Griffin, I suppose you better take a look at his Wiki page. I'd say that he's now the acceptable face of Fascism in the UK, if such a thing can exist. I'd also like to point out that he's of a far right disposition, I know how you Republicans wrongly like to think that Fascism is a Socialist or Liberal phenomenon.

He's managed to wheedle himself into a position of political power by achieving a seat as an MEP, not really a position he can do much damage, but nevertheless, he has won an election as he's now managed to get political funding for his extremist views. As a democracy we can't oppose his influence, he's been fairly voted into his seat by the people, although everyone knows he's only there because a lot of people used the BNP as a form of protest vote against the main parties.

However, now that he's an MEP, the BBC decided it would be prudent to ask him to sit on the panel on Question Time to air his views on questions from the public. Personally I didn't think this would be a good idea because giving airtime to people like Griffin only fans the flames of acceptability. I do feel that after watching the show that Griffin and the BNP have been shown to be what they are, a bunch of violent, bigoted racists, so I doubt if they managed to gain any followers from his performance. I was bitterly disappointed with Jack Straw's performance, he seemed so flustered and avoided answering many of the questions directly, I suppose you should expect that from a cabinet minister. However the person that came out on top for me was Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, she continuously turned Griffins poor arguments into nothing more than what they were, hateful remarks from a man who hates everything that isn't white or Christian.

I found it extremely funny when David Dimbleby, the host and chair of the panel, repeatedly asked Griffin to explain some of his past comments, which Griffin would cringe and smile at, like why he thought the Holocaust was a myth or asking him why he had met with a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. Griffin was simply out of his depth and struggling as his torch seemed to get dimmer and dimmer towards the end of the show.

So in the aftermath of what should have been the BBC's most watched show in recent years, what are the opinions? The BNP thought the whole show was about bashing Nick Griffin, I'd agree, but that was only because the man couldn't defend his arguments. Did it warrant the amount of media coverage it had? I don't think so, like most people I tend to think that giving airtime to people like him is a waste of resources, plus all the protesting only highlighted the situation. I do believe that Thatcher had it right when she used her powers to stifle the IRA's media presence during the troubles, I suspect that today, using such power would result in a vast amount of naysayer's shouting about free speech and human rights. But one thing is for sure, I doubt that even a small percentage of yesterdays viewers will be watching Question Time next week.

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Ouch

Since I mentioned something to a friend on Twitter, a few people have been asking me about this incident that happened last Friday night at the pub where I soundly got my ass kicked by a woman. I'm making this a friends only post because I don't want my elderly parents to find out as this type of thing happens to me quite often due to my choice of career over the last 15 years, so although it's common knowledge to all my friends, I'd appreciate if nothing was mentioned on Facebook just in case the old dears find out, they have enough to worry about with Dad's cancer without having to stress about me getting into scraps now and again.

You see, I have run a few rough pubs in my time, in order to keep these places running smoothly I had to be a bastard and I took no prisoners when it came to dealing with drunk scumbags who went out of line. I was known, behind my back, as Satan, because I wouldn't let anybody get away with anything and I would bar people for the any infringement  that involved fighting, damage to the premises or drugs. I felt that I was being fairly light and fair with these people and I'd say that the majority of my customers thought so too, it was just the small few that were hell bent on causing trouble that got on my bad side.

Anyhow, about ten years ago I barred this woman and her husband from the pub because they started a fight that ended up with one of our windows being broken, the next time she came in I told her of the fact and she went totally off the handle and started throwing every drink she could get her hand on at me, glasses and all, much to the annoyance of all the customers as they were still drinking them. Anyhow, luckily it was a weekend night so the doorstaff managed to escort her out whilst I was calling the police.  One would think the story ends there. Alas it does not.

She along with many people, I think I had a banned list of over seventy people at that time, still hold grudges. From time to time I am subject to an attack from one of these 'people' decide that I need to be taught a lesson. Usually it's ok with me, most of them have some kind of honour about them and come up to me face on and fight like men, on Friday this was not the case. This woman, well, I describe her as a woman but she's more of a malignant female growth, called me over. I suspected something was going to happen but it seemed she only wanted to talk, so I'm the type not to keep hold of grudges so I went over. She was a bit drunk and kept going on about this time she was barred ten years ago and wanted me to apologise, and since I was not in the wrong I refused and walked away.

Big mistake, I turned my back on her, I know better than that but I'd had a few and thought there was no danger. That;s when she struck me on the back of the head with a glass, apparently twice. I went down like a sack of shit as I wasn't expecting it, thats when she put the boot in as well. I'm not so sure on what happened as I was trying not to spill my drink, but according to my mate she kicked me a few times in the head as well before running away.

I just dusted myself off and got another drink. A bit wet and embarrassed and most of the damage was to my ego, oh and to my glasses, they were bent out of shape from the kicking, but I managed to bend them back into some semblance of normality.  My head aches a bit from where she glassed me, but other than that I'm ok.

This is not the first time such a thing has happened to me, I doubt it will be the last. I try to avoid places where most of the scumbags hang out, usually I'm quite good at avoiding them, but since my local is now being run by the longest streak of piss I have ever met, anybody is allowed in there and to date I don't think he's barred anyone, even for starting fights or selling drugs on the premises. I think he's seen what happens to you when you stand your ground with these people and he's too scared to be the man between them and the decent sort who enjoy a sociable drink.

I find it quite funny though, your life must be quite empty and devoid of joy when you carry a grudge for over ten years at someone who was simply doing their job. After all, you wouldn't appreciate someone coming to your house and starting a fight and breaking one of your windows would you?

Obviously the day after I was harbouring ideas on how to get her back, but that's passed now, life is too short to carry on vendettas with people who's IQ is lower than a retarded chimp. Hopefully now she's had her second pop at me she'll be able to carry on her sad life and leave me alone. Somehow I don't think that will be the case.

I wonder who'll be the next one to have a go…

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Coat of Arms

I was a bit bored earlier so I decided to make a coat of arms for myself, here's what I came up with.

KoA Coat of Arms

As always is the case with heraldry, everything has a significance. The colours represent peace and sincerity for silver; royal majesty, sovrereignty and justice for the purple and strength and magnanimity for red. I happen to quite like the colours too which is a bonus.

I obviously had to include a red dragon to symbolise my Welsh heritage but it also means valour and protection. I've also included the crown and the ankh for obvious reasons, but usually they represent royal authority and faith, both of which I have none, but since my screen name is KingOfAnkh I had to include them.

The helm represents my surname which is Williams, which stems from the Germanic for Wilhelm, which translates to helmed one. A helm also means wisdom, strength and protection.

The motto is a quote from Cicero, I've always liked it and translates as 'In times of war the law falls silent', never a truer statement said.

I'm off now to get my stationary printed and a few flags made, I'm also looking to hire a young serf to carry my standard, please apply in the comments if you are interested.

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MP’s Expenses

There's been a bit of a hubhub about the expenses that Britain's MP's have been claiming recently, if you live in the UK it would be quite hard not to have heard about it. Especially the politician who claimed for cleaning his moat on his second property or the one who claimed for a duck house for his lake.

I think all in all they have been taking the piss a little to say the least, but a few of the worst offenders have dived upon their swords and resigned and all of the thieving bastards have now got to pay all that they have over-claimed back into the coffers.

It's a bit of a joke when you consider that the 'Second House Allowance' is there to allow politicians who reside a fair distance from Westminster to keep a place of residence when they are in London, which I think is fair enough as traveling costs can be quite high if you have to travel hundreds of miles to do your job. However as most politicians are slimy opportunists it was no surprise to me when the scandal broke out that they were taking full advantage of any loophole that was available.  Fair enough, they were caught out and they have to pay it back and that should be the end of it.

Well hang onto your horses there, I just read this article about our illustrious leader, Gordon Brown. It says he himself has to repay a certain amount because he's over-claimed for cleaning and gardening for his second home. This is the guy that lives in No.10 & 11 Downing Street, he's lived there for over ten years, he doesn't need a second home! He's managed to claim £12,415 for cleaning his second home over the last five years, on the hourly costs of the cleaner I had a while back, that's seven hours cleaning per week, for what should be a small flat or house to keep you comfortable whilst you are staying in London when you are there working.

Now I'm not one to cast aspersions on our MP's cleanliness, but if you need someone for an hour a day to clean up after you then you have a problem. When I had a cleaner it was an hour a week affair and I'm possibly one of the most untidy people I know. Even then she was in and out in less than half the time but I still paid her as she did a great job.

I understand that our leaders all have palatial dwellings, but to squander public finances like this is a bit naughty if you ask me.

Plus, according to the article, the general allowance per year for cleaning is £2000, that's roughly 6 hours worth of cleaning a week for what should be a one bedroom flat or a bedsit, because let's face it, if any of us had to keep a second home in London because we had to pay a visit two or three times a week for work reasons, we wouldn't be forking out on a 14 bedroom mansion with 20 acres of land, so why should they?

This isn't about envy, I couldn't care less if they did live in their little million pound houses, I just don't like the fact that they are allowed to claim a huge amount of taxpayers money to 'help' them with the upkeep, when in all fairness they should only have a small dwelling for work purposes.

Just to highlight this a little more, there are 645 MP's in parliament at the moment, if they all claimed their full £2000 yearly allowance for cleaning then the tax payer has to shell out £1,290,000 a year, just on their cleaning costs, lord alone knows how many other claims they have.

I'd say this though, if it was me who was in charge of their finances, they would only have an allowance for an hour a week cleaning, perhaps I'd stretch to £10 an hour as I'm nice that way. This would bring the yearly maximum allowance down to £335,400 a year, almost a saving of a million pounds! That would pay for the wages of 55 Grade D Nurses or 40 Police Officers!

But I still think the lazy bastards should do their own cleaning, but that's a utopian idea and we all know that things like that never happen in real life.

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iPhone Annoyance

I love my iPhone, it's my favourite gadget, I simply can't see myself living without it, but there is one huge thing that's very wrong with it. O2, the UK's sole carrier at the moment.

O2 are shit, there is no simple way about it. I don't know how well Verizon, the US carrier, stands up, but O2 simply doesn't work most of the time.  Whenever I meet up with friends they almost always tell me that they've been trying to get hold of me but never get through, which is a worry when you are looking for work as I may be missing calls for prospective job offers or interviews. The 3G signal is almost non-existant, when I do get a signal it's just as slow as normal GPRS/Edge which is useless when you want to do something online.

Ok, fair enough, I live out in the sticks, but even in the centre of town I can't get a signal most of the time. If I walk inside a building, goodbye O2, I might as well pop my phone into a lead lined coffin and bury the damn thing for all the good it is, all I have is a more expensive version of the iTouch!

But the main grievance I have is this. As a prepay credit user, if I run out of credit, which happens to me quite a lot and it might be a couple of weeks until I'm able to afford to top up again, O2 like to send me an automatic reminder that I need to top up each time I want to use the phone. Not much of a problem I hear you say, you have no credit so you can't use the phone anyway. Unfortunately, it isn't like that.

For prepay iPhone users you get your first year data-roaming free, so all applications that use the push technology set off this annoying message. Until you have ran out of credit you can't appreciate how many times your phone sends out and receives push notifications. It's absolutely fucking annoying! A constant chirp in your life. Even switching off push doesn't stop it completely, every couple of hours you get a helpful reminder you have run out of credit. Thanks O2, I wasn't aware of that, I forgot after you have already sent me 500 messages over the last two hours!

So being at the end of my tether, there's another thing O2 wont allow, tethering, I dutifully search the forums to see if it's possible to switch off this damn annoying O2 feature. Yes! It can be done, you call 4444 and get it turned off! Hooray!!!!!

Not so simple.  If you turn it off then other features are disabled too, features I depend on, especially things like the credit left notification. Argh! So I'm stuck with constant messages or losing useful features! Fecking O2! If there was a way to spoil a brilliant gadget, you certainly get the gold star.

All is not lost however, Orange and Vodafone are coming into play very soon, I for one am going to jump ship as soon as is humanly possible. I have used both carriers in the past and have been very happy with them. Their coverage is better, their offers are better, plus with three carriers their costs will be more competitive. I can't wait, being able to use my phone in the pub for instance, very handy for cheating on the crosswords, even better for ending arguments, best of all for tweeting! 

Hopefully the iPhone will be what it should always have been when I get a new carrier and damn O2 to Satan's sweaty ball sack in the nether regions of hell!

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Broken Britain

A new study by the UN was unveiled yesterday and it highlighted the fact the Britain has slipped out of the top twenty of the best countries to live in. Well I could have told you that without having to spend a dime in research.

In 1990 Britain was tenth in the league and has steadily been slipping down the rankings ever since. Not much of a surprise there, with the dumbing down of education and the rising tide of benefit bums this country has will bound to have had an effect. The scary thing is, all these figures are from 2007, before the recession hit the world, so undoubtedly Britain will have slipped much further down the ladder.

I think it's actually noticeable that the quality of life in Britain has gone down. The cost of living is much higher, the quality of housing is poorer, education is certainly much worse than it was, I know this first hand from trying a few exam papers last year and found them perfunctory at best, not to mention the politics degree student I know who hasn't got the faintest idea who is running the country nor the differences between the parties. Is it any wonder that the country is going to the dogs? Not really.

So who's at the top?

Norway.  Well done them. A country predominantly led by a democratic socialist left wing coalition under a constitutional monarchy with a good reputation for environmental concerns and outstanding education. Not bad for a country of less than five million inhabitants with the reputation of being the most peaceful country on the planet.  I think we could all learn a little from their example.

How are we in Britain going to pull our socks up?  I don't know the answer to that, but that's the reason I'm not being paid to run the country. I'd suggest we start by voting out our current shambles of a government and concentrate on education and jobs.  

I think that education in Britain has become a bit of a joke, university places are fought over by hundreds of thousands of students each year because they all have the same exemplary 'A' grades so selection of candidates is almost impossible. Once there the students generally spend an hour or two studying each week and the rest of the time drinking and getting fat. Further education is no longer seen as a way to improve yourself, but an excuse for a three/five year piss up.

Compare this to what I have seen in poorer countries, where students are truly grateful for the chance to better themselves and study very hard under difficult situations, it's no wonder that most of Britain's doctors and specialists come from abroad.

So here we are, not even in the top 10%, bit rubbish really aren't we!

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Me Stamp

Me Stamp

Me Stamp, originally uploaded by kingofankh.

Just a little photoshopping I did at the beginning of the week, I'm only posting it here as I wanted to test the blogging feature from Flickr.

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Timing

Last night I gave up, I was sitting there in my quiet place and I thought to myself what is the point. Life has thrown so much shit at me over the last few years and by the looks of things it's not going to change any time soon.

I eventually made my way home and fell into bed, not really caring if I woke up the next morning, alas I did and I looked at my emails.

If there is such a thing as a god, then the timing of this particular email was perfect, divine in its content and inspiring in its value to me. I'll share a snippet with you…

"Thanks to you my business's are thriving.  I am full on the childminding front and on the aerobics.  I am loving it!  So many people commented on your posters and how good/effective they were.  Most of my calls were from flyers I had put through the door so thanks so much."
 

It made me realise that no matter how bad things are or how low you get, there is always a reason to carry on and always someone who appreciates what you do.

Although my input to her success was marginal, I only made a couple of designs for her advertising needs, it made my day knowing that she's doing very well.

It also highlighted my need to contribute in life. I'm desperate to find a job and get back into it again. I know that something will come up eventually, but sometimes you get disheartened and feel despondent about how unfair life can be, but also there are times when the kindness of an email reminds you that you just need to buckle up and carry on.

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