2018 Year in Review

Previously if I had spent NYE by myself, I’d be lonely and some shade between melancholic and miserable – this year I’m just tired after a long day at work, and pretty upbeat. I find myself mostly satisfied with 2018 – it has been an exceptionally fun and enjoyable year, one where I have made progress in some key areas of my life – but also overlooked and lost control of others. 2018 started on the sober side with a 3 month detox that I completed successfully.  It was certainly tricky at times and life was less fun – there …

As I type this now, I must admit that the service has been much better this month on the Metropolitan line – or at least I’ve got lucky in terms of avoiding the signal failures. However, one particular journey stands out from 2018 which was such a clusterfuck that I needed answers.  Would I get them? ****** I guess I should be amused that you are trying to charge me £8.00 for the clusterfuck of a journey on Thursday 4th January, that took nearly 3 times as long as it should have.  Surprised you are not charging me for a …

Christmas is over.  Normality is returning.  Sobriety is around the corner. As usual, I went to Hull to see my parents and some of the extended family, for 5 nights.  About 1 night too many for me, about 360 nights too short for my mum. It being time with the family, meant that the television was on much of the time – there is only so much I have to say before I start boring myself let alone everyone else (verbally, anyway).  I guess there is something kind of comforting about sitting around together on the off-chance that we can …

Dear Cadbury’s There is an argument at the age of 38 and with several fillings and a few teeth missing, that I should have learnt my lesson and stopped eating sweets. But stuff that.  Life is short and I love sugar. And Sports Mixtures are one of my favourite sweets – that and Tangfastics, I find hard to go a day without one.  Or two.  Or three.  And I wonder why I’m fat. Anyway, before I bore you rigid about my new weight-loss plan that will never work, I would like to make a complaint about Sports Mixtures. Normally they …

I have had enough.  And I am not talking about Brexit. The Metropolitan line has become so bad that I’m getting home close to 8pm.  Today, I was on a tube stuck outside Harrow-On-The-Hill, awaiting a platform as both northbound platforms were occupied by other trains.  Neither of which apparently had a driver.  Fucking brilliant. A good 15-20 minutes just stuck there, going nowhere, until the train finally moved, so I could then sit on the platform for a while and wait for my end destination train to arrive – which was stuck outside awaiting a platform.  Plus a bit …

Hey Sainsbury’s, how’s life?   We haven’t spoken for a while, which for most people other than my mum, is probably a good thing.  Definitely for you, as it means I have something to moan about and then you have to spend time refunding me the half a cucumber or whatever it is that I am moaning about.  Though the Metropolitan line is taking the brunt of my moaning capacity at the moment.   My lack of contact means that I’m either too busy or I’m happy, and until this delivery I was both.   Only one issue, the tomatoes …

Last year you may recall that I got very excited when I bought some shares, and especially when they went up 10%. They went up and down quite a lot but they were often 10% ahead, which would have been a nice £500 profit. I had invested pretty much all my savings in there, £5,000, which was my redundancy money from Easynet.  I wasn’t using it, so I thought I should put it to good use and get it to grow using my wisdom – I’ve always fancied myself at being able to spot an investment opportunity – I often …

I started writing this over 2 years ago…no idea why I never posted it at the time.  3 of the places on the original list I’ve already been to – Bucharest, Vienna and Madrid. It isn’t in any particular order, bar the top 2 which I’d really like to do over the next 2 years…if I can somehow scrape the money together as they would by some way be the most expensive places to visit.  Which will only happen by the way of long periods without drinking or going out. 1. Tornado Alley2. Japan3. Cuba4. St Petersburg5. Melbourne6. Dubai7. Seoul8. …

The first of my complaints this year to TFL – on a broad range of subjects. ****** Dear Sir/Madam I don’t know where to start with this complaint.  How about GRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZR RGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZR RZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZR RZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZ RRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRR ZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZ RRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZ RRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZR RZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZR RZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZ RRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRGRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRRZRR? Yes, that was what awoke me on both a Saturday and a Sunday morning – early – very early in the mornings, back in September. I live close to Rayner’s Lane tube station, with my bedroom facing onto the Piccadilly line.  I quite like being able to see tube trains go past – for some bizarre reason this marginally …

Before going on holiday one should always ensure that the next holiday is booked. But also before going on holiday, one should ensure that the previous one has been blogged about.  Though I still didn’t manage to click ‘post’ before I went to Croatia. It seems ages ago, but back in May, myself and my most excellent friend, Martin, sat down on a Friday evening and decided to try to find somewhere to go away for a weekend of beer and culture. I had some budget restrictions – shock horror.  We also wanted to go to a country that we’ve …

Dear Sir/Madam   A month or so ago, I travelled with yourselves to Vienna.  In Austria.  Though you probably know that Vienna is in Austria.   The flight on the way there was efficient and friendly – abominable cupcake, but hey, free food.   Vienna is a great city, as I am sure that you already know.  We had a great time there, but were ready to come back on the Monday, expecting to get home with enough time to do some tasks ready for work the next day.   Alas.  We were at the airport in good time, security …

Dear Sir,  I am contacting you regarding a special cargo that has been abandoned here at our warehouse for over a period of 2 years and when scanned, t revealed an undisclosed sum of money in it. From my findings, the cargo originated from Europe and the content was not declared as money by the consignor in order to avoid diversion by the shipping agent. I strongly believe the box will contain about $4.5 million or more.  In my private search for a reliable person, my proposal now is to present you as the recipient of the cargo since the …

I’m rather quite busy nowadays, especially with my job, commuting and trying to enjoy London, so I don’t always get the time to complain.  I have not only a list of complaints to make, but also a folder of complaints to share on my blog. So I thought I’d be efficient and save up a few for Sainsbury’s, and sent it shortly after they announced their merger with Asda. ****** Dear Sainsburys I am sure that you are currently being overwhelmed with part-time snobs given the proposed merger with Asda, with a flurry of complaints from wannabe Waitrose shoppers that …

I’m feeling down again and guess what has triggered it?  Being fat.  As always. Nothing else really gets me down – things can annoy the fuck out of me like cyclists and Brexit, but nothing actually depresses me like the loss of self-esteem that being fat, and getting fatter does. Earlier this year, I lost, I think 6 or 7kg whilst on my 3 month detox.  I have since put back on 8kg – reaching a new record highest weight, 98.5kg.  Some of it I actually put on before my detox ended with an Easter chocolate binge (2.5kg – because I didn’t lose …

“I’m a remoaner”, as Destiny’s Child may or may not once have sung.  Yes proud Remainer here – I unequivocally did not want to leave the EU and still do not want to leave the EU. But hey.  It’s happening. I see most of my remainer compadres seem to prefer a soft Brexit, staying in the customs union, staying in the single market, or even the EEA.  Hell, even one or two prominent Brexiteers do too. Sometimes, though, you have to play the long game, like the unaffectionately-known “bastards” of the 1990’s, Redwood et al, who spent 25 years agitating …

Gosh was it really 2 weeks ago?  Erm…gosh was it really 4 weeks ago?  That is assuming I actually finish this post tonight.  5 weeks…OK 6 weeks ago.  Definitely finishing it this time. Can I actually remember any of Madrid?  Oh yeah, I went with my family. The Why My father suggested a family holiday a while back, in celebration of his retirement.  I think I was probably 16, maybe 17 when I last went on holiday with my family, and I stated that I would never again go on holiday with my family. Well, I’ve gone back on quite …

I was having a bit of a strop last week – eating loads of shit food, drinking too much wine and being a bit miserable and grumpy.  It happens.  I’m not one of those people that can pretend to be 100% happy all the time, as much as I do appreciate life.  Most of the time, I’m at least content – but I’m pretty demanding upon myself and life – I have high expectations. Though at the core of it was some unhappiness at work.  It was a crap week, a tough week – I was feeling a bit displaced …

It’s only Wednesday evening and I’ve already ditched the vaguely less unhealthy diet (ie less than 3,000 calories a day), and opened a bottle of red wine.  Actually it was already opened – I’m finishing it off. I am questioning things at the moment.  Particularly in terms of where I work and where I live. Why do I live in Harrow?  Am I still happy in my job?  Is the commute worth it?  At what point do I get fed up of being on junior pay?  Am I still a junior developer?  Should I start looking for another job?  Should …

Dear Sir/Madam I still have not worked out the point of cucumber. It tastes of nothing.  It seems to be just water.  It is utterly pointless. Yet I add it to my salad.  Why?  I have no idea.  Just one of the many pointless things I do in my life, like writing letters of complaint over something worth about 55p in the vague hope that I am making someone smile somewhere with my vague attempts at humour. Anyway, I had a cucumber bought from my local Sainsbury’s store the other day.  Other week, actually, I’ve been busy. The sell-buy date …

I wanted to create a list of my favourite cities. I appreciate that it isn’t easy to put them into context – those that I have visited most recently are most likely to be fresh in the memory and hold fond memories closer to hand. Also I have visited the cities with different people and for different reasons – some cities I got to know much better than others. 24. Rome I was only there for a short weekend, and with a couple (the female of which I rather fancied) so maybe this was never going to feature too highly …

On the off-chance that someone who doesn’t already know me reads this, a little introduction. I am a lifelong Tory.  I have always voted Tory, I am pretty much in love with Margaret Thatcher, I was a great admirer of David Cameron – and I always vote Conservative. More importantly, I am a free-marketeer, I am an economic and social liberal – though I believe in individual responsibility and minimising government spending.  Though occasionally the Conservative Party can make me wince socially – they have proven time and again that they are the only political party that will allow a …

I’ve always thought of myself as someone that can spot trends, and as such have long been keen to try investing. The only reason I didn’t before was a lack of capital.  When you get charged like £12 to buy shares, then you cannot really be investing £100. My Easynet redundancy money had been sitting in my account, and I had managed not to spend it during my subsequent period of unemployment.  We are only talking 4 figures – nothing crazy – though that is a lot to me.  My, erm, life savings. And then last January, I read in …

Well that was a crappy little day. I woke up late, and tired.  Drinking Red Bull and eating shit food from the off. I’ve said it before, but being fat is the one thing guaranteed to make me miserable, and putting on weight when eating healthy and doing some exercise like I did at the weekend has triggered me off on a run of eating lots of shit – approx 4,000 calories a day.  As opposed to 1,500 a day last week when I was happy…or a least content. So, of course I’ve put even more weight on and am …

So it finishes.  3 months without alcohol.  Finished already. I almost feel a little sad about it.  It’s like the end of a holiday.  I expected to jump up and down in excitement about the upcoming retoxification, but nah.  I feel very nonplussed about it. My 3 month detox was on doctor’s advice.  There is nothing wrong with my liver per se, but it needed a reduction of the fat content otherwise there was a good chance that there would become a problem. I’ve had my blood test today and now await the results.  Hopefully the doctor will say “party …

Yes, you read correctly. I have joined a gym. I figured that as I am nearly 40, exceptionally unattractive to women and still absolutely desperate to have multiple children – preferably to different women but the same one will do I guess, I should really do some critical analysis of why this is. The question that I have been asking all year to myself after 1000’s of unreciprocated right-swipes is why am I not attractive to women.  I mean, I have a mullet, after all.  And don’t forget the shiny green meggings. So I changed my gender on Tinder to …

As good as everything is at the moment, it would be ideal if I had more time for myself during the week. I appreciate that people in other vocations sometimes have longer hours, but 9am to 6pm was a bit of a surprise when I started working at Lovespace – I hadn’t asked about the hours during interview, it was kind of irrelevant – but they are the longest working hours that I have ever known. Add on the journey to and from work, which is normally around 1 hour 15 each way – but can easily be more depending …

I have goals.  I started thinking about them in January and finished some point last month.  In no particular order of priority, bar the top 2. Lifestyle Lose Weight.  Shock horror, this is here again and my number one goal.  Last year I started at 90kg and aimed to get down to 82kg.  I finished at 96kg.  This year I start at 97kg and want to get down to 85kg.  And next year, no doubt, I will be aiming to get down to 90kg or something fuckwitty like that. 3 Month Detox.  No alcohol and limited red meat for 3 …

Yeah I know, the reflective period for 2017 is long over.  But I started writing this during said reflective period (in my head, anyway), so I’m going to finish it. I normally do some kind of look-back at the year, more for my own purposes than anyone else’s amusement. You could call it a transition year, but I guess you could call many years for most people a transition year.  Though at the beginning of 2017 I was unemployed.  Quite happy about it at the beginning but it soon started to grate on me – I didn’t mind too much …

Dear M&S I remember when I was a child, hating every single minute of being dragged around Marks & Spencer in Hull.  All I wanted to do was go out and play football, and perhaps set fire to the odd rubbish bin if I could steal some matches. But no, almost every Saturday, my mother and father decided that they would torture me by spending elongated periods in this infernal hell.  The only positive experience I ever had in there was when I found a penny on the floor. As soon as I was old enough to buy my own …

Sometimes it takes a bit of work to get a refund…or just to find common cause with your refunder: ****** Dear Tesco I am generally not a fan of your food quality – some will call me a snob, but I am from up north so not entirely sure that is something that can be aimed at me. Anyway, I actually quite like your avocados, and go through several a week.  Well, I normally like your avocados. Over the last month, I have had two pretty horrid, soft and close to inedible avocados from your Rayner’s Lane store. I will …

I received an invoice last month from my hosting company for £5.99 instead of the usual £4.99.  Cue an e-mail: Hello I noticed that you are trying to charge me £5.99 for hosting this month, instead of the usual £4.99. Please can you correct your invoice and ensure the correct amount of £4.99 is charged. Kind regardsJames ****** Hi James, Thank you for contacting us on the matter and apologies for the delay in my reply. I’m afraid the price of £5.99 is the correct amount of the hosting package as we have increased our hosting package’s prices by 20% …

Good afternoon I’m not having much luck with yourselves. Recently I used my voucher from my previous complaint for the t-shirt that I had ordered that fell apart. Instead of receiving the expected t-shirt, I received a shiny silver postcard from the Royal Mail, advising that there was a £4.48 customs charge to pay.  Oh and an £8.00 fee for the privilege of handling it. So a total of £12.48, or roughly $5,000.00 with the post-Brexit vote exchange rate – but that’s all good because we’ve taken back control.  Yeah. I don’t mind paying the customs charge, but surely it …

It is a month into my 3-month detox already. In terms of alcohol it has been piss-easy.  Rarely have I considered having a drink – I am comfortably managing afternoon visits to pubs with only soft drinks.  Only when something has annoyed me and I’ve had a mini 5-minute rage-strop have I thought about alcohol.  Though it would be nice to have a glass of red wine to write this with. Avoiding red meat is another question.  Sausage sandwiches and sausage rolls are out – but I do crave them quite often…very often at first!  I’m not strictly avoiding red …

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me…yeahhhhhhhhh.  I find my birthday increasingly psychologically bizarre – it’s like a form of validation for myself as a human. Despite Brexit, I generally think I’m a decent, funny and occasionally interesting person but I still have doubts about myself, and wonder whether I could be a nicer, happier, more interesting, etc, person to be around.  And then when I organise a birthday meal (or whatever I organise) I worry that nobody will turn up, or people will cancel. So the weeks running up to my birthday I always have these very occasional …

It’s crazy to think of what people think of me as a Hullite now compared to a couple of years ago. Prior to Hull being the UK’s City Of Culture, most people would have had me down as some kind of cultural oaf – yet now, Hull is synonymous with cultural offerings, and of course, being from Hull means that one is now highly regarded in cultural matters. People from Reading are proud to have a new burger made in their honour.  People from Hull are proud to now be regarded as exemplary custodians of culture. Whilst Hull may now …

So as of January 1st, I started a 3 month detox.  Well, technically January 2nd once NYE has been taken into account. Though I was quite looking forward to a detox and could tell that I needed it, I didn’t want to do a 3 month detox.  My doctor is recommending it.  Yes, despite Michael Gove’s proselytising, I have not yet had enough of experts. A year ago I had some general tests done – I had some slightly unusual symptoms – nothing especially worrying, nothing serious or life-changing, but thought given my previous 20 years of bodily abuse, that …