Every day at work begins with a team briefiing. Slowly at first, then in a great rush as the canteen empties, the shift personnel gather at the allotted place to discover who is on the premises, who is doing what for the next eight hours, and what will happen if certain lazy activities continue.
The manager calls for silence so he can call the register. After a five second wait he calls again with a stern stare at the knot of youngsters who don't understand what 'quiet please' means. Eventua
One of the great truths of Britain is that for every run of good weather, you pay for it by rainy days to come. Right now the weather is prone to heavy showers. Typically I got dampened by drizzle as I arrived at the library, only to see sunny skies out of the window as I'm typing this. I'm not tempting fate by declaring when I want to go home.
The other day I was watching the birds in the park. The feathered ones I mean. Their antics are fascinating, especially when one gets cross with anot
Don't you just love conspiracy theory? Despite everyones manifest inability to control their own destiny and Mankind's penchant for getting it wrong, people believe their lives are being controlled by some strange unseen group of elite conspirators. Personally I find it a bit hard to imagine that the typical career politician reaches the top of his political tree and becomes top dog in his own country only to be told what to do with it by Men In Grey.
The whole genre is nothing more than rel
Caldrail's blog is missing. Or at least the last weeks entry is. Well, no, not really, I just forgot to write one. So I apologise for the tension this had caused around the world as people bite their nails hopin g my next entry will magically appear. David Cameron and Ed Milliband exchanged insults in an angry row. Three schoolgrils gave up and went to Syria. Even Jeremy Clarkson punched his producer over an argument about it and caused the BBC a multi million pound commercial loss. Sorry about
Hello, I'm Caldrail, she isn't, and you're reading The Albion News Network (brought to you by International Portakabins - "We don't break windows").
Todays headlines - Major logisitics company fail to deliver parcels.... Warehouse manager under investigation for failing to meet deadlines.... Security guard mocked for failing to send Caldrail to the right door.....Office girl sacked for failing....
We'll have more on these stories later, but now, an important message from our sponsors...
As usual, we line up outside the library waiting for it to open, so we can all enjoy the public internet access. Read books? Ahem. The doors open, and the library assisteant, a clean cut lad, is brushed aside as the experienced library goers are keen to log on. Poor lad nearly gets trampled to death.
Good grief, AM's friend has bought himself a new coat. Instead of the filthy padded jacket he's owned since 1976 he now wears a raincoat, very suitable for spring sunshine and long days in the
Back in my childhood, I used to watch Dick Dastardly's elite German squadron attempting to Catch That Pidgeon. Like an aerial roadrunner, it always got away. Muttley, Dastardly's less than faithful dog, always got his medal. Herr Dastardly always got his comeuppance.
Ever since their brave service as message carriers in the Great War, Pidgeons have developed a nasty streak. They instinctively know when you're in your best clothes or you've just washed your car, and know exactly how to deflat
The weather has been great these last two days. Clear skies and balmy sunshine. Not bad for February in England where benign climates are something you spend hundreds of pounds to escape to every summer holiday. Nature is having a sunbathe too, trees are and flowers looking very much like they should in spring. Woodpeckers have colonised one of local parks, making it sound like a construction site as they burrow into trees. Squirrels and rabbits at large, doing squirrelly and rabbity things (sur
Sometimes I encounter opinion regarding my blog. Well, it is there to be read, and I'd rather people formed an opinion good or bad than simply shrug and go back a *or* video. Mostly I hear how rubbish it is. Funny how the loudest people are those who want dismiss or abuse. No matter, but I do understand that not everyone wants to hear the latest whinge or moan from me. So before I whinge and moan some more, here's the fun bit.
There I was, bored and miserable, sat on a bus bumping and swayin
Those of you who know England will also know that somtimes, just sometimes, the rain goes away to ome back another day, leaving us with a few days of glorious weather. Like today, a warm balmy day, and with all my chores done it was time to seek a quiet corner of the local park and relax in quiet solitude, away from the noisy daytime activity of my home town.
It isn't all that quiet if I were honest. An ocaisional gravelly rasp of a light aeroplane overhead, the distant subdued roar of a tra
In the last few weeks I've rediscovered a television series from the sixties. The Saint were the adventures of gentleman adventurer Simon Templar, played by Roger Moore, a sort of poor man's James Bond without the gadgets and evil villains taking over the world. Moore plays the part with his usual bond-esque humour but it is hard to imagine a real life counterpart so genteel and light hearted. In his world, just like Bond, he's infamous and known to everyone yet can wander around incognito until
Almost the end of the year. Most of 2020 has been about Coronavirus and the government locking up the population for fear of catching it.
Man With A Skateboard
The other day I was on the doorstep waiting for a parcel delivery (having been advised by phone and email he was going to turn up imminently) when this old guy wandered by taking his skateboard for a walk. Not since the 1970's and the kids tv show Magic Roundabout have I seen anything quite so weird. No, really, it was rolling g
A few nights ago I was walking home late at night along one of the main roads leading into the town centre. In the wee small hours you rarely see pedestrians, and the only movement is the odd hot hatch or police car. The amber street lights might be effective in lighting the dual carriageway but the grass verges are obscured in shadows and gloom. Okay, I do see urban foxes around there quite often, but on this night all was quiet. Hello, what's that in the grass? A plastic bag? The shredded rem
Whilst I'm not a luddite, I've always resisted the temptation to embrace the internet as anything more than a convenience. It is true that I adopted an internet based job searching procedure back in the days when the internet was not quite so all pervasive and employers recruited by all sorts of traditional means. It's also notable that the Job Centre became very antipathic to my methods once the internet caught up with them and officialdom dictated what was or was not acceptable. They would arg
You find me in a very reflective mood. It's time to blog again. Not sure why, I guess it's one of those strange inponderables of life. So.... Where to begin?....
The Simpsons has an intro sketch featuring a gag with Bart daubing his lines on a school blackboard before escaping on skateboard, followed by the family gathering to watch tv in novel and amusing variety. Family Guy has the Broadway musical intro. South Park has South Parkesque imagery to tempt the senses and attract those with sho
Weather... Funny thing weather... We seem to have more of it than any other nation in the world and yet we seem uttely incapable of coping with it. All part of being British I supose.
Over the last few days we've had fog to contend with. You would think that might cause a few problems with getting around.and you know what? You're right. It has.
As for me I had a job interview to go to. The agency that put me onto it was so worried that the fog might put me off that they called me on the
Oh dear.... The floor of the warehouse is crumbling under the weight of the forklifts trundling back and forth. The builders are in, cutting gaping holes in the floor, filling them with concrete, and getting miffed when they discover lumps of cement nearby or a forklifter knocking plastic cones aside.
The guy who fixed the electrics in our porta-palace finally finished wiring up our area today, and slowly (expertly) manoevered his cherry-picker out onto the main aisle, whereupon his platform
At the Charity life went on in a sort of organised chaos. You turned up, sat through a prayer meeting, then got told what your duties were for the day. I suppose I was lucky as I often got scheduled to work as a drivers mate on the company van, collecting and delivering secondhand furniture. A relaxing sort of job. Mostly. Okay, the driver was a bit highly stressed, often losing his temper, and of course the drawback to collecting and delivering furniture is that bulky objects are often heavy an
Another local newsletter fell through my letter box the other day. It seems our fair town of Swindon wants to change, wants to progress, wants to become a cultural vanguard. Yeah? Really? The civic leaders and planners trumpeted that line thirty years ago, which shows how little vanguarding they managed to achieve.
One of their former pet projects, the 'circus tent' market hall, is to be demolished which has alarmed local traders who can't afford the high street premises. The planners haven'
Oops... I believe I missed a week in my blog entries. No matter. We're still waiting for the Ukraine and their Russian backed rebels to adhere to an agreed ceasefire. We're still waiting for the government to realise that all those changes to benefits payments is only going to produce more beggars on the street. Or for passers by outside my home to finally realise I really couldn't care less what they say.
A Quick Night Out
"I fancy a pint" My colleague mused out loud as we strode homeward
We interrupt your normal reading to bring you the latest story, hot off the press. The Independent Peanut Republic of Rushey Platt has announced that they have annexed the state of South Carolina. Rushey Platt apologises to the USA for the incovenience, and assures citizens of their new dominion that they will not be required to fill in british tax returns. That concludes this newsflash, we'll bring you updates on this story as it happens. Over to our on-the-spot reporter, Sally Forth. Whats hap
Saturday night in my area is never entirely quiet. My street hapens to be a major path between Old Town on the hill and New Swindon at the bottom of it, with clusters of clubs and pubs at either end. So as you might imagine, the Swindon branch of the Inebriated Debating Society often pass by.
If that wasn't bad enough, my neighbours are keen on playing music before they go out for the night on the basis it puts them in the mood. For what? Annoying people? It seems to work, because at half-pa
I have a strange feeling it might be nearly Christmas again. My suspicions were raised when my local supermarket began playing the very same Christmas hits - you know the ones, I won't traumatise you with their memory. The next clue was the presence of a brass band playing .. well... Christmassy tunes. One of them was out of tune. I know this because I happen to be a musician. The final clue in this insidious seasonal plot was the strange pleasantness exhibited by the managers at work. It's a st
I am officially at war. Never wanted it to come to this but my Claims Advisor has gone too far. After inspiring me to apoplexy the week before, she made sure there were no independent witnesses in the office and attempted to provoke an incident, one which presumably would have me escorted off the premises and quite probably to a waiting police car outside. Sorry, I'm not falling for that one.
As I look for work, I record each step I make, and I mean fairly exhaustively. That list has satisfi
Where shall I go today? The library, so I can do more internetting? Or the Support Centre so I can do more job searching? It doesn't really matter because I'll end up doing both today as I do every day.
Today I will go to the library first I think. Nothing ike variety in the working day. The road crossing outside the library also happens to be where the main entrance to the Old College building site is. The tarmac is crumbling under stress and has become a building site all of its own as rep
