At least Abu Dhabi wasn't a F1 procession

Did you watch the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on December 12? I did, my first GP in many years.
This was partly due to the fact it was being shown on terrestrial TV (I’ve not joined the SKY revolution) but mainly because, for what seemed like the first time in ages, it was an exciting end to a F1 season.
I can’t say I fully understand the FIA rules and regulations. But that lack of knowledge has never stopped me from commenting in the past.
Am I alone in thinking it was an incredible last lap, with a bit of excitement and even some jeopardy?

Better than the rather boring processional races of the past few years.

My ongoing love/ hate relationship with technology

I have a real love/ hate relationship with technology. Well not really technology but with the people who develop it.
There’s so much to love about tech in 2021. For instance, being able to talk with your aunt in Australia, for free, on an app.
Or how about being able to stalk, sorry, know the exact whereabouts, of your partner when she is on a long drive on her own.
I embraced what was then called new technology in the mid-1980s when I purchased my first desktop computer.
It was a monster, an Amstrad PC1512. I acquired it when we lived overseas and remember it set me back more than £1,000 – that’s the equivalent of about £2,500 nowadays.
It had no inbuilt memory but just contained a floppy drive and everything you did relied on five and a quarter inch floppy disks. As they had VERY limited storage (about 500k I seem to recall) doing anything useful required you to continually swap floppy disks with the dexterity of a magician.
But enough of the past. Let me bring you up to date – and my current hate.
It’s the person/ people who decided to update my bank’s mobile app.
I received a prompt earlier this week on my mobile to say a new version of the app I have been using successfully, without any problems, for a number of years was available to download.
So I did. No-one can say I haven’t got my finger on the pulse.
Download and installation was a success. Trying to access my finances afterwards was anything but.
I won’t bore those of you still awake all the details but suffice to say there were a few issues which could only be rectified by a visit to a branch.
The woman I saw there was wonderful – helpful, patient and even seemingly amused by my wit and repartee as she got things sorted.
It turns out several things had changed on the updated and supposedly improved app but the bank forgot to tell anyone.

The perils of driving over a Bank Holiday

If you ever see me driving on a major trunk road on a Bank Holiday weekend (including the Friday) you have my permission to shoot me.
Ever since we had a journey from hell driving to a family golf day in Wiltshire, SWMBO and I have said we would NEVER drive ANYWHERE again on a Bank Holiday weekend Friday.
The golf day was scheduled for the Saturday of the early May Bank Holiday weekend in 2000 so we set off on the Friday afternoon “to miss the traffic”. Unfortunately no-one had told the other motorists on the M11, M25, M3 and A303 that we were trying to avoid heavy traffic and it ended up taking about eight hours instead of three and a half.
For the next 21 years we managed to avoid Bank Holiday travel. Until, that is, the last late August weekend.
I worked out it would take about four and a half hours (five with a stop) to drive from deepest Suffolk to Skipton in Yorkshire for a 50th wedding anniversary do.
So we left home at 10am, looking forward to settling into our hotel mid-afternoon for a relaxing couple of hours before joining our friends for a meal early evening in a country pub a few miles from Skipton.
As the journey went from bad to worse we rang the hotel and said we’d be late checking in as we’d decided to go straight to the pub.
We eventually got to the pub at 8pm. All the other revellers had eaten (the meal was at 6pm as there were three children in the party) and we checked into our hotel at about 10pm.
As I said, you have my permission to shoot. But please make it quick.

Time for charities to pull their socks up

I’m not sure whether it’s a Covid-19-related issue or what but I am amazed at the lackadaisical attitude of some charitable organisations towards their volunteers.
SWMBO has been helping out at a local charity shop for a number of years.
She chose the charity carefully, wanting to help one that meant something personal to the family.
When Covid-19 hit last year things were a little up in the air, with the shop not always able to open for its “usual” hours. Sometimes SWMBO was needed, other times not.
But the last few months has seen a real change in attitude. Basically, lines of communication have ground to a halt.
SWMBO had always been contacted but things changed when the shop manager was signed off work.
When this first happened, SWMBO, who volunteered for an afternoon a week, rang the shop regularly to see if she was needed.
Then, quite suddenly, the phone went unanswered. Did this mean the assistant manager and other volunteers were too busy to answer the phone? Had the shop closed? Was she still needed?
After several weeks of no communication SWMBO decided it would be best to pop into town and try and find out what was happening.
When she got to the shop she was met by a hand-written note, Blu Tacked to the inside of the door, with the new opening hours – which were now just a couple of days a week but not on the day she was usually in.
No-one from the charity had contacted SWMBO, either by telephone or email, to let her know what was happening; to say she was no longer needed on the “usual” day or to explain what might (and might not) happen in the coming months.
SWMBO also helps out at an activity-based organisation. She is emailed regularly and asked to help with events still some months away. Unless we are away she will always agree to help and always replies within a couple of days.
And then, as with the charity shop, communication grinds to halt. No follow-up email with timetables, schedule of events, when (or even if) she’s needed etc. A gently electronic prod a day or so before the event then gets an apologetic email – yes, she is needed, it will say, accompanied by all the relevant information.
SWMBO is, admirably, only slightly irritated by the lack of communication – she is, after all, a nicer and more tolerant person than I am.
But I have no doubt that at least one of the two organisations will lose a volunteer quite soon. They may not be paid but they are valuable.
BIL, my brother-in-law, had a similar situation a while back when a charity close to his heart let him down somewhat.
He was asked if he could put together a regular newsletter and immediately said he could. Well, I could. Within a couple of days we had a sample produced and sent to the charity’s head office.
Since then he has heard nothing. Zilch. Not even a “thanks but no thanks.”
Come on, charities. Get a grip. We can’t blame everything on Covid-19.

People who don't pay for their parking really wind me up

I have been seeing Sidney again every week since the Covid-19 restrictions eased. After meeting in a coffee shop for a while we have a new meeting place – outside on a lovely street.
I make sure I get there early as I don’t want Sidney to worry if he arrives and can’t see me so I have a bit of quiet time to people watch. Well, car and driver watch really.
Parking at one particular car park is expensive compared with other car parks in the town, with costs starting at £1.50 for up to 30 minutes, then £2.20 up to an hour and £3.50 for two hours (which is the maximum length of stay – no return for four hours!). However, it is convenient for me.
What has shocked me over the last few months is the number of people who park and don’t pay.
Many are popping in to deliver or collect something from an establishment in the vicinity area and are away from their cars for, say, five minutes. They obviously feel it is worth taking the chance of getting a ticket rather than paying £1.50.
But the majority of non-payers stay in their space for much longer, often being away for anything up to half an hour.
So it was, with a sense of smugness, that I spotted the parking warden one day last month checking the cars. It was the first time in a while and I reckon he filled his boots.
I do, of course, have some sympathy for the non-payers. £1.50 for a two minute stop to deliver a letter works out at a rate of £45 an hour.
So why doesn’t the council introduce a 10-minute free parking option? Drivers would still need to get a ticket to display in their car – this would give the warden an exact arrival time.
And it would stop me, who ALWAYS pays for his parking no matter how long the visit is, from getting so wound up. It’s not good for someone of my age.

Messi earnings seem a little obscene to me

Back in 2017 in this excellent blog (?) I mentioned a (then) well known professional footballer.
“Poor old Wayne Rooney,” I wrote, “having to take such a heavy hit in his family’s income. His £160,000-a-week deal at new club Everton is just over half his Man. United wages. I look forward to seeing the long-lens shots of Colleen at the local food bank in due course.”
Obviously those photos of Coleen never appeared anywhere as, somehow, she managed to feed the family on that massively-reduced income.
I’d spoken with Mil (my Mother-In-Law) a few years previously when Rooney’s salary increased to £100,000 a week. “That’s a good wage,” she said. “£100,000 a year.”
When I pointed out it was A WEEK she was, to say the least, incredulous.
Unfortunately I could not update her with Rooney’s salary in 2017 as she had passed away just a month earlier but I know she would have found it unbelievable.
I mention all this because I am intrigued about what she would have made of the Lionel Messi move in August from his boyhood club Barcelona to PSG in France.
Messi is apparently taking home around £650,000 a week – that’s £94,000 a day, £3,900 per hour, £65 per minute or just a smidgeon over £1 per second. These are all rough estimates, of course!
On top of that, Messi also pocketed a £22.5 million signing on fee.
Is it just me or this all just a little obscene?

Sidney finally gets the help he needs

As I may have mentioned before, once a week I venture out to meet up with my friend Sidney.
Sidney, which as you should know by now is not his real name, suffers from a mental health issue and I have been “linked” with him for more than five years now through a befriending charity.
He lives independently and although he receives some good support from members of his immediate family, he does spend most of the time on his own.
In my last missive about Sidney, in July 2020, I said he had been assigned a new CMHN (community mental health nurse), who I shall call Simon.
Both Sidney and I were hopeful that Simon would be a little more reliable with regular visits than the previous CMHN Sebastian.
Wrong. Simon saw Sidney at his home twice in a year. And he only made any contact (by phone) with Sidney when I, a volunteer, contact him with an issue that is worrying Sidney.
Anyway, Simon has now moved on too and Sidney has a new CMHN – I shall call her Penny.
Penny’s not been around very long but things seem to be going well – she has called Sidney several times and even been to see him more times in a couple of months than Simon did in a year.
I am so pleased that a vulnerable member of our society is at last getting the attention he deserves and long may it last.


Just two weeks after Boris announced the UK’s Freedom (from Covid restrictions) Day was to be July 19, SWMBO and I attended a wedding in Shropshire.
The betrothed couple had faced three postponements over the past 18 months and now, finally, family and friends were able to witness the nuptials and help them enjoy their day.
As with most weddings, it was a wonderful, boozy affair, with an interesting mix of the young and the old.
I know the title of this column is I don’t get out much but I’m really glad I did for those few days. I’d almost forgotten how to socialise and how to behave in public.

Remembering that horrific attack on the twin towers in 2001

I still clearly remember September 11 some 20 years ago when a sub-editor in our editorial office looked up to the television we had mounted on the wall.
It was always on, during working hours, and mainly tuned in to news channels.
The sub let out a gasp and shouted, to no one in particular, “you’ve got to come and see this.”
We crowded round the television, unable to take in what was unfolding before our eyes.
The date was September 11, 2001, forever afterwards to be known as 9/11.
That horrific attack on the twin towers in New York shook the world and the following month Britain joined its international allies in invading Afghanistan.
Now the final British troops have left that country and, surprise, surprise, the Taliban have seized control again.
I don’t know whether this is the correct decision because, believe it or not, I am not fully up to speed on such international affairs.
But I do know that many countries and forces have attempted to “rule” Afghanistan over the centuries, and all have failed and retreated.
I’ll be interested to hear the views of Bil, my brother-in-law, when we next meet up. He was a career soldier who completed 37 years’ service including a tour in Afghanistan from April 30 to November 3, 2008.
The family was understandably concerned about his six months in Kandahar. I am pleased to say he returned unscathed, other than having sore knees.
This, apparently, was due to having to throw himself under the nearest table on multiple occasions as the Taliban lobbed rockets and grenades into the camp.
In order to provide him with some regular news from the UK I wrote my first email or e-Bluey to him on May 1, the day after he left the country. Bluey’s were armed forces' slang for letters home; e-Bluey’s were the email version.
I managed to write three or four a week for the six months and my last one was on November 1.
Bil replied on November 2: “Last day. Flying home tonight, RAF willing. Whooopeeeee!!!! Thank you very much for keeping me sane (You will find out when I get back if that is true!) with all your emails and e-blueys, it has been really appreciated.”
And what we, his family, all appreciated was his safe return.

Nostalgia. It's not what it used to be

Some people say nostalgia isn’t what it used to be but I have been reminiscing about Euro 96, which took place in England 25 years ago.
Now I know this event probably isn’t celebrated by many but the football tournament meant a lot to me and my BIL (brother-in-law).
We had become England members a few years earlier and watched home games whenever we could. We lived in different parts of the UK and these games gave us a chance to enjoy a regular boys’ day out if nothing else.
We would meet just off the M25, leave one car there and then drive to Wembley in the other.
At one match in late 1993/ early 1994 I picked up a brochure offering England members first dibs at applying for tickets for the 1996 European Championships being held in eight cities across the country.
Worth a try, I thought. Probably won’t get any. So early in 1994 I applied for tickets for each of the six matches at Wembley.
Much to my surprise I received a letter in March that year informing me I had been successful and had been allocated two tickets for each of the three England games, a quarter final, a semi-final and the final, all at Wembley.
Total cost £580. I called BIL and asked him if he would send me £290. Why, he said. I had to admit that I hadn’t mentioned applying for the tickets as I didn’t think I would get any so it was something of a surprise for him.
Fortunately he was delighted and said payment would be on the way.
Two years later, on June 8, 1996, we were at Wembley Stadium for the opening ceremony and the first England game, against Switzerland, which ended 1-1.
Wins over Scotland (2-0) on June 15 and the Netherlands (4-1) on June 18 followed.
A rather squeaky penalties win over Spain in the quarter-final on June 22 set up a semi-final against Germany on June 26. Spoiler alert – Germany won on penalties.
Although disappointed that we wouldn’t see Shearer, Gascoigne, Sheringham et al in the final on June 30 we still enjoyed it, with Germany edging the Czech Republic 2-1.
We thought football was coming home after 30 years of hurt. It didn’t completely but it made for a wonderful summer.
I’ve been a bit of a football fan (can you tell?) all my adult life and have been fortunate to see many memorable finals.
It all started with the 1973 FA Cup Final, Leeds v Sunderland, at Wembley. In those days I played for a local Sunday morning team and we applied, via our county football association, for FA Cup Final tickets. Our team was allocated two. Two of us left leafy Hertfordshire that Saturday morning – but only one of us watched the game.
As we walked down Wembley Way we were asked if we wanted to sell our tickets. I said no every time. So did my teammate. Until someone offered him ten times the ticket value. That’s the last time I saw Dick until our next Sunday game.
I ended up with a wonderful, vocal group of Sunderland supporters and had a magical day. And evening in the West End!
Then there was the last ever FA Amateur Cup final in April 1974. Bishop’s Stortford was where I lived and whose team I followed.
A memorable away day by train to the North East for the semi-final again Ashington at Roker Park ended in a 0-0 draw. With the replay at Brentford won it was on to Wembley and a 4-1 win against Ilford 1.
I have also seen a league cup final, between Chelsea and Arsenal in 2007 at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff and a Charity Shield game between Arsenal and Manchester United at Wembley in 1993.
But I guess the most unusual game I have ever seen was the Gambia’s 1-0 Africa Cup of Nations 1st round win over Togo in April 1979.
I was in the Gambia on a press trip and our hosts had planned a visit to the Roots Village. Roots was a massive TV show that had first aired in the UK in 1977 and the Gambia opened the village as a new tourist attraction.
A fellow hack and I decided this wasn’t really our scene and asked the concierge at our hotel if there was anything else happening in the Banjul area that day.
Which is how we ended up watching our first, and last, Africa Cup of Nations match.

Keeping us safe online is a two-way street
Is it just me or have the spammers and crooks of this world been having a field day over the last year as we spend more and more time online? Touch wood, I had been fortunate enough to avoid responding to those “you have authorised a payment to..” or “you’ll go to jail if you don’t pay outstanding tax immediately..” emails and texts that are doing the rounds at present.
But it is clear that many, many people are being tricked into transferring funds into a new bank account “for your own security” or clicking on an innocent looking link in an official looking email.
While we have a duty to take care, the various organisations we communicate with on a daily basis also have an important role to play in keeping us safe online.
Which is why I was surprised, and perhaps a little bit shocked, to receive a call early one Friday morning from the supermarket I have been using for click and collect shopping.
I did not know initially it was the store as the number shown on my telephone was a mobile number and I let the call go to answerphone.
On playing back the message the caller said he was speaking from said store. There had, apparently, been a problem with the credit card details I had entered online when booking the shopping to be collected later that day.
This was, I should add, the same card I had used with said store for around nine months.
The caller then asked me to call him back on his mobile number and give details of an alternative credit card.
At this point I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Me, give out credit card details to a person at the end of an unknown mobile number? Not a chance.
So I rang my bank, feeling confident they would be able to help. They couldn’t. All they would do is acknowledge that the bank was aware of a few similar problems.
What to do? After all, we wanted to eat that week. Well, I found the number for supermarket concerned and rang that rather than the mobile supplied earlier. At least I was sure of who I was speaking with!
The problem was sorted within a few minutes and I was able to collect our red wine, white wine, brandy and loaf of bread later in the day.
So, two black marks this week from IDGOM – the first to the supermarket. Why not send me an email (addresses are easily checked) asking me to go to my online account to change payment details?
The second black mark goes to my bank. Simply for being unable to help.

More people cashing in on the current pandemic
My rant in February about tradespeople hit a nerve among my readers/ reader (delete as applicable)
I now have another experience of tradespeople to share with you. We are very fortunate to have rather a large patio in our garden.
It was laid more than 20 years ago when we moved into the house and had served us well on those balmy Spring, Summer and Autumn days.
Unfortunately the rather inclement weather we face during the rest of each year has taken its toll on the jointing.
To call it jointing is something of a misnomer at present as we have more weeds and earth separating the paving slabs than concrete.
So SWMBO and I decided it was time to call in the experts and have the lot redone.
Following my live local, use local mantra I contacted three patio “specialists” who advertise in our local parish magazine.
Number one said he was far too busy at present and would get back to me if he had some spare time BEFORE THE END OF SUMMER. No, we’re alright thanks, I told him – we want to use the area when we can finally see family and friends again in our garden this month and certainly before the Autumn!
But good on him for being open and not wasting anyone’s time – his or ours.
Number two patio man came round to have a look at the project and said he’d email me a quote.
On chasing him a couple of weeks later (mid-March) he said he would definitely email me. As I write this at the end of March I have still to hear from him. And yes, I have checked my spam folder.
Now we move onto patio man number three. He too came round to look at what was needed and said he’d email me a quote. After a gentle reminder he did.
When SWMBO saw his quote she almost fell off her rocking chair. Not one to usually demonstrate great emotion about quotes (apparently that’s man’s work) she was horrified at the bottom line.
Suffice to say it was almost double what we paid to have the whole thing done. Yes, I know that was 20 years ago and we have had a bit of inflation since but the cost then included all the groundwork, cementing, paving slabs, jointing etc. etc.
I can only surmise that he has so much work on, like patio man numbers one and two, that he doesn’t really want this job. Unless, of course, we are willing to pay way over the odds.
So we decided to do the job ourselves. In two days we have finished just over half the patio – scraping out all the old joints and applying an all-weather self-setting jointing compound.
By the time we finish we will have used just over £100 worth of the compound, following the manufacturer’s usage guide.
Patio man number three said it would take £350 worth of the same product to do our patio. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Covid-19 has undoubtedly hit many businesses but not, it seems, people who do patios.

I have empathy but my hackles still rise

Did you watch the Harry and Meghan interview with Oprah? No, me neither. But the press coverage makes it I feel like I did.
From what I have been able to ascertain Meghan had a mental health crisis prior to fleeing the UK for Canada and then the USA.
That is something we should all take seriously and never, ever dismiss out of hand.
Harry, quite naturally, stood by his wife when he felt she was not offered the support she deserved and decided to take his new family out of the limelight.
I have no problem with any of this and, in fact, feel it was a very honourable thing to do.
But my hackles rise when I hear that they appeared to want to give up public duties but not public perks. A case of them wanting their cake and eating it.
None of us will ever know what really went on but we should now let them get on with their celebrity lives, if that’s what they choose, and hope that Harry can repair some of the bridges and re-establish relationships with his family.
Forget, for once, that he is a Royal – he’s simply a son, a brother and a grandson.

Use local tradesmen when possible - but be prepared to wait

I am a firm believer in supporting the community, be it the village, town or general area.
Which is why we use local tradespeople whenever possible. Hedge cutting – local. Plumber – local. Electrician – local. Painter and decorator – local.
The standard of work has, so far, been good but their customer relations leave a lot to be desired.
Example one. Send a text in the autumn to the man who has cut our hedges for many years saying we’d like him in soon. No response to the text until a few months later when said man appears by the kitchen window one evening. Quite a shock to have someone banging on your window when it’s dark outside while you are concentrating on your Sudoku.
He still can’t give us a date for the work
but he “will get round to us” some time. Another month or two passes without any communication until 7.30 one February morning we are woken by the gentle sound of – a petrol hedge cutter.
Example two. We call the plumber we have used for getting on for 20 years to fix a tap for us. No response so leave a message. He turns up, unannounced and with no previous communication, a few weeks later to fix the tap. SWMBO asks if he could also sort an issue in the utility room. He nods sagely but says he can’t do it now.
As I show him out he says he’ll be back “Friday evening” to do the job – this was on a Wednesday. Friday comes – no plumber. Whole of the following week. No plumber. Then almost two weeks after he said he would be round he appears. No apologies. No nothing.
Is it just me do some of these tradespeople just take us for granted? Answers on a postcard please.

We never met but were still good friends

I made my first call to Barbara in May 2015. She was my new, and first, Silverline friend.

The charity Silverline had been set in 2013 by Dame Esther Rantzen as a sort of Childline for wrinklies (my words).

She was prompted to do so after finding herself increasingly lonely following the death of her husband, Desmond Wilcox.

The idea was simple – match up volunteers with elderly people who wanted someone to chat with, on the phone, on a regular basis. SWMBO spotted a TV appeal made by Dame Esther late in 2014 for more volunteers and immediately thought of me.

I applied, went through the online training and was matched with Barbara. Calls were made through a virtual call centre meaning our telephone details were private and we were encouraged to use first names only and never give any personal details away.

After some initial hesitation as we sounded each other out, Barbara and I settled into a good routine, with me calling her the same time and day every week.

This carried on until late October last year, 2020. After not being able to get through a couple weeks running I contacted the Age UK Friendship service, which had taken over the Silverline service in the autumn of 2019.

It transpired that Barbara had died but that her daughter, who I spoke with a couple of times when she was visiting Barbara, had asked if she could send me an Order of Service.

I said that would be wonderful. Early in February I realised I had not heard anything, or received anything in the post, so I rang Age UK Friendship again.

They said nothing had been received but if it had, it would have been forwarded. I felt a little deflated.

Sure, we had never met but Barbara and I had become firm telephone friends, chatting away happily for more than five years.

As it was her daughter who had asked about sending the Order of Service to me via Age UK she must have changed her mind. Or it had been forwarded to Age UK but misplaced?

Sadly, I’ll never know.