Things Not To Put On Toilet Paper.

For some of us of a certain vintage there were only two type of toilet paper when we were growing up, firstly there was the stuff we had at home which came in various colours depending on the colour of your bathroom and was soft to the touch. Then there was the stuff that was the favourite of institutions such as schools (they probably had it in internment camps, prisons and the like) - yes it was IZAL - a substance so hideous that we called it 'Slip & Rip' because that seems to be its main function, the primary purpose of toilet paper seemed to have passed its inventors by (heaven knows what they used, if indeed they used the bog at all). Believe it or not this stuff actually contained bitumen, which is fine for covering a flat-roof but pretty damaging when wiping your arse!

Needless to say that there are some of you who indeed recall a time when sheets of newspaper were hung on a nail in a whitewashed outside karzi that ponged of Jeyes Fluid, but I am going on my life-experiences.

I digress. Yes we all know that toilet paper has its primary function (IZAL could also be used as tracing paper if you recall). Now like a whole load of other things the product has been developed to something with the texture of a soft quilt, which is for me the zenith of bog roll and it should end there and we should be content with that. No, the human race just cannot leave things alone can it? So what do we have now - toilet paper with artwork printed on it. It all started as a bit of a novelty when some wag put a cross-word puzzle on a few sheets and now it has got out of hand and this time of year is the worst.

Allow me to explain. When we go to the IL's for the annual ordeal of festive moaning with a chance of a Yuletide hospital visit from FIL and MIL making mountains of seasonal leftovers, we have in the smallest room the 'special' Christmas toilet paper. I have to admit that the artwork is quite nice with frolicking snowmen and teddy-bears wrapped up in scarves etc. For me it just feels so wrong that I have to do with it what we all do with toilet paper. I mean somebody, somewhere has put time and creative energy into drawing what is on the paper, yes you might think it is twee, but I really get hung-up about it. I know it is not the original artwork you are using - the times I have been asked to leave the Tate Modern for doing just that has now resulted in an ASBO.

Look here is a suggestion if anyone wants to print anything on toilet paper, at least make it something that we aren't going to mind using - might I suggest Donald Trump's face or the ISIS flag for a start?

Memory Lane The Diversionary Route

As most of you might know Sunday is the favoured day on the railway for doing maintenance, just as on road Bank Holidays are the favourite time for spreading millions of cones along every patch of available road, dumping a few token items of heavy plant and the buggering off for a six week foreign holiday!

Last Sunday I was working and had two trips to Waterloo. The first being the very first train from Salisbury to Waterloo. I got into work and read my work schedule where I saw the word 'Piloted' alongside Woking where I was to pick up the said Pilotman. The reason for this being that we Salisbury drivers do not take services (also known as 'signing a route') to Clapham via Egham, Staines, Isleworth etc.

I got to Woking and picked up the driver who was to pilot me and we went along the ling to Byfleet and New Haw where we were route off and along the Byfleet Curve to Addlestone. This is where Memory Lane began, my first job after graduating was in Addlestone where I worked for Runnymede Borough Council, my first project was to oversee the building of new toilets in Victory Park, which the line runs along on one side. Then we went onto Chertsey, I designed a wall for a school and a surface water culvert under the railway line. Now we crossed the M25 bridge and to Virginia Water, where I had lived for a time and had even done some spotting at the station. Next to Egham, yet another public toilet I designed, a car parking survey and some survey works for a few drainage projects in the grounds of Royal Holloway College.

To think that all this was over 20yrs ago. We now left the borough and came to Staines (yes it is still a dump!) where I had taken my young nephew to see Jurassic Park, then Ashford where he and my aunt and uncle had lived. Next Feltham, still rough as a badgers arse and very glad that we were not stopping until Clapham - I had also done a survey in 1997 at Feltham of some offices owned by ICL. That was more or less the end of the reminiscences.

We got to Waterloo and on departure were sent by our normal route and didn't need a pilotman again. However we were crossed from the down fast line to the down slow line from Surbiton to Woking. Passing through Weybridge I was reminded of the very last architects office I worked in three years ago. To think that since 1991 I started in Addlestone (a few miles from Weybridge) worked in Swansea, London, Kingston on Thames, Guildford, Aldershot, Bristol and Cardiff - and even lived in Woking. I am now doing what I always wanted to do, what I did in the interim was just a diversion route until I got on the right line - Never thought of it like that really.

Wiltshire Council's Farcical Recycling Methods

Today we put out all the shredded paper (which I hasten to add they have collected on previous occasions). It was not collected, instead we get the dustman spending the time he could have put the paper in the paper recycling sticking an officious missive informing us that as 'I am just obeying orders' they do not collect paper that is shredded - this is despite the fact it is paper, the same stuff that is made from trees like the stuff we have not shredded because they were mainly takeaway leaflets and did not have out personal information on them.
This leads me to the following conclusions:

1. The person who drew up Wiltshire Council's recycling policy is a complete moron who spends the time he is either not sitting in his only bodily waste or trying to feed himself wondering just why his bank account details have been hacked for the umpteenth time every year.

2. Somebody at the paper recyclers obviously wants all your sensitive data in an easy to read format - not shredded!

3. Dustman are of the same mind-set as the sort of people who turn up at war-crimes trials and believe that the defence 'I was only obeying orders' will excuse them from anything.

As a result the shredded paper has now gone in the bin - in fact why don't we just put every damn thing in the same bin and then dump the whole lot on the front of Wiltshire's newly refurbished offices in Trowbridge and they can sort it out just the way they like it - peasants!

On Behalf of Bald Men

Today I went to have my occasional trip to the barbers - I say barbers because that is what I have always called them, hairdressers are for women. Words like stylist, gel and mousse are not something I use ever, neither is a comb to be honest - not since my wedding day nearly sixteen years ago. Grooming products are something I will never use either, soap and a flannel - if I am really dirty its swarfega or a pumice-stone. To be frank I cannot understand why any bloke would spend more than the time it takes to shave five days growth off in front of a mirror.

Back to the trip to the barbers. Needless to say cutting my hair does not take long and I usually have to preplan any conversation to deal with this type of brevity. The usual exchange of 'Grade two all round. Yes do the eyebrows and that looks fine to me' all have to be taken into the conversation equation, so the meaning of life is right out along with the old favourite of 'What the hell is wrong with the world.' Also I have no football related chat to speak of.

I went in and there was already one person in the chair and nobody else. Now it looked as if he was coming to the end of the his time - this is by my standards so I was very wide of the mark on that score. Then it dawned on me why don't barbers offer the same sort of service as you get in the supermarkets? No, not carry to the car - it would be a five items or less type of arrangement for bald men, no chat, a quick once-over with the clippers, wave the mirror around, something for the weekend? Then pay and home and it could be done cheaper because you would get through more people in the same time as you would when dealing with somebody who looked like Cousin It from the Addams Family.

The Misery Vampire.

One of the first things I made a point of doing when I joined the railway was to join the union ASLEF. Having been a student I had been automatically a member of the NUS and to be frank up to then I had never met such a bigger bunch of tossers - mainly rich kids playing lefty politics to annoy their parents. However having worked for nearly three decades where unions were a no, no and management did just what the hell they liked I saw why unions came about thanks to the Tolpuddle Martyrs in the first place. However I have realised that there seems to be no middle ground with unions and working against management, government and anyone else in authority seems to be a given instead of working together, as lets face it compromise is the best way of all parties getting their own way. Sadly in work the prevailing attitude of the union is 'Two legs bad' as far as management in concerned and if moaning were an Olympic sport then train drivers would be able to put a world beating team together just by pulling names out of a hat. 

That's the background. Over the past few months there have been niggles in the way of the union allowing our overtime rate to be negotiated down from time and a half to a flat rate and they allowed our roster to be fiddled with to a point where we all work six weekends on the trot, despite them telling us we would be getting more weekends off. The last stitch up prompted a response whereby unofficial action of not working freedays was insisted upon. When one of the union bully-boys tried to get me to fall in line I asked whether this had been officially sanctioned by ASLEF and if so why hadn't I been balloted - that went down well. So I wrapped up this more than a bit flawed argument by saying 'So this is unofficial action to get ASLEF out of the hole they've dropped us in?' It went a bit quiet followed by leftie bluster. So I decided that there was no way I was going to cut my nose off to spite my face and work my freedays, along with others and - wait for it several members of the local ASLEF committee.

So to the person I refer to as the Misery Vampire (MV). He is one of the institutionalised drivers who have never done a days work outside the railway (consequently if you can imagine a very ugly version of Keith Richards that is what this whining oaf looks like). Anyway some weeks ago MV was spouting in the messroom that all the drivers that work their freedays are nothing more than back-stabbing bastards blah, blah, blah. I decided not to enter into it as getting into a blazing row and then taking a train full of passengers was not something we are encouraged to do as it is not safe, so I kept silent.
Fast forward a few weeks and I make a passing comment that to somebody that 'I am one of those back-stabbing bastards that work their freedays.' The very next day MV comes into the messroom at 4am and the following discussion takes place:

MV: Can you explain to me the comment you made the other day as I have taken exception to it.
Me: What comment was that then?
MV: The one about being a back stabbing bastard.
Me: Well you made it first a few weeks ago in front of me.
MV: Why didn't you say something to me then?
Me: What, and potentially start an argument that could potentially lead to somebody having a incident on track by making a bad situation worse.
MV: Well things are bad here as it is.
Me: So you are advocating making a bad situation worse - that's not very bright is it? Now let me explain a few things. One, I am not a bastard as per the dictionary definition and if you want to see my birth certificate as proof I am more than happy to do so. Two I have never wilfully stabbed anyone in the back, however I have been recipient of such treatment on more than one occasion. Finally with regard to ASLEF and it's diktats official or otherwise I would like to know why seeing that they have allowed us to be stitched up in my time in the job on our overtime rate and our rosters and no doubt will allow us to be stitched up on our paydeal. Bearing this in mind why should they have the temerity to demand that I cut my nose off to spite my face to get them out of the hole they, yes they, have dropped us in especially seeing as this is my sole form of income (knowing full well he has other sidelines) and I unlike a lot of others enjoy my job. I refuse flatly to do so as they are behaving no better than the bankers in asking innocent bystanders to sort out their problems to make them feel better! In addition to this I can not tolerate the hypocrisy of being told by ASLEF not to work my freedays when representatives of this branch are not leading by example by not working theirs.

MV then started waffling leftie gibberish that was the most feeble attempt to justify the unjustifiable I have ever heard. By now I had had more than enough and walked over to him proffered my hand and said 'Lets just leave it at that shall we, we both have opposing views and any further discussion will do neither of us any good.' We shook hands and I left - never argue with an idiot, they drag you down to their level and beat you by experience.
Unfortunately that was not the end of it, since then there have been more than a few snide comments from MV and on the day I went back to work I had to listen to him spouting even more drivel in my direction as he derided new drivers. I'll be honest when he isn't creating misery he is scuttling around the depot feeding off other people's irrespective of whether the poor individual concerned has had an incident or big-toe ache. Frankly he should know better as he a few years ago he was suspended after allegedly pushing a female driver (who he is know to hate) down the stairs, now both are not entirely blameless and the truth of what happened is inconclusive, but the more I have to work with him the more I think that it is highly likely that he did it despite his cronies putting it about that it was all the other drivers fault.

As you can imagine being exposed to that bombardment of negativity, blatant hypocrisy and dystopian leftie dogma when you go into work has been somewhat wearing and in addition to the other two problems was the last straw. Consequently I have now left ASLEF as I no longer wish to be associated with such leftie bullshit, I have however joined the RMT (Regularly Making Trouble) I know they are even more looney left than ASLEF, but I see union membership as nothing more than a work based insurance policy, but hopefully as they are predominantly a union for other rail workers I won't be expected to support their activities.

For this I shall bear no malice

Yesterday I did some nosing around on the internet regarding my Mum's cousin. He was a rear gunner in a Halifax that was shot down in May 1943 over Holland. When I was growing up my mother occasionally spoke of him as she remembered meeting him during the war (he grew up in west London & mother in south Wales) when he was in uniform she was eleven when he was killed aged twenty-two.

As I ferreted around I followed leads from the website of 51 Squadron that was based at Snaith near York. I found out the number of the aircraft he was in DT645 and searched for that and I came across this:

http://www.aircrewremembered.com/smith-watson-david.html

My mothers cousin is Sgt WJ Merrigan and from what I recall he was the tail-gunner on this Halifax. Bearing that in mind it dawned on me as I read that there was the very real possibility that as the plane was shot from the rear he was the first to die and was spared the horror of being in a plane out of control and heading for the ground at a rate of knots.

I then read about the pilot who shot his plane down - well he was certainly no amateur as this was his 25th kill and he had survived the Battle of Britain. Then I read on and found that he himself was dead the very next day! The next bit certainly surprised me - instead of thinking 'Serves him right the  $#%£&*@ for killing a member of my family.' My thought was simply he was doing a job in the same way that my mothers cousin who was twenty-two was doing a job, he was thirty-three - no age really for either of them, I just felt sad that these people died as a result of one small group of lunatics who wanted to rule the world and they were nothing more than bystanders caught up in it.

Childhood Horse-Shit Trauma.

Way back in the 1970's when stuff used to work when the country wasn't on strike or in the dark and things had colour schemes were based on pools of sick - I was a child growing up in Swansea. Swansea in itself is a shit-hole, it always has been and always will be, in fact when the Luftwaffe started bombing it from 19th Feb 1941, they stopped after three nights when they realised they could not manage to make the place any worse and decided to drop their bombs on somewhere more deserving.

Back to my childhood - well I say childhood, I was legally a child and my dufflecoat had a hood that was permanently up as it was Wales and it rained a lot. It was more of a forced apprenticeship for small people who had no choice as far as my parents were concerned. One of the many things I was forced to do apart from mixing cement from the age of three, was every year (usually around Feb/March time) we would have a trip to the Gower to collect sack-loads of horse-shit for the garden. Rarely would we go to the Gower in the summer as it was full of tourists and my family didn't want to part with any money to park the car at Oxwich, Langland or Caswell - or anywhere else for that matter. In any case why waste valuable concrete mixing time when the weather was so good as making the house and garden look like Soviet Russia would never happen whilst we were playing on the sand or paddling!

Back to the sack-loads of horse-shit. Every year as soon as one Saturday would offer the chance of light drizzle or even no rain we would all be loaded into the car (a Ford Corsair V6 which regularly conked out) along with a various plastic sacks and Mam would bring a picnic which was ideal for eating in the freezing cold and wet with the ever present pong of horse-shit everywhere! It was only made worse by the horrors that always will be the taste of tepid tea out of a flask, there are few things more vile! We would be there for hours, sometimes until it started to get dark, filling sacks with horse-shit and struggling with them to the car - if only the NSPCC had known! The boot would be so full that the back end of the car was distinctly lower than the rest of it and on every occasion it was so full that my sister and I would have a few sacks of the stuff between us to stop us squabbling. Frankly even now I still prefer spending time with a sack of horse-shit than my sister. However a row always broke out when my Dad tried to get Mam to carry a sack-load on her lap. Then when we got home we'd have to barrow the vile stuff to the non-concreted part of the garden, aka the veg plot (which would have fed most of the street every year).

Once this ordeal was over all clothes would be removed and instead of being burnt as they deserved were washed and we were put in the bath. It is hardly surprising that at school I found it difficult as I was probably ponging like a heaven knows what! I still break out in a cold sweat whenever I walk past the mounted horse-guards on Whitehall as when we went there one particularly hot summer in the 70's all I remember seeing was a massive pile of horse-shit the associated cloud of flies and the look in my Dad's eye that said 'If only I had a few plastic sacks and a shovel.'

Rusty's Rubbish Railway. Part 3.

The other trains that Rusty owns are class 143's, 150's and 158's or as everyone else calls them 'Nodding Donkeys' or 'Burger Vans.' These are just the polite names.

Sometimes Rusty has to bribe people to let him borrow their trains due to some of his being condemned as unfit for human use. This makes other peoples trains very frightened as they don't want to end up broken and smelling like an old tramps vest. Sometimes they get so frightened they hide at the back of the shed and refuse to come out. If they do come out they have been known to have oil-leaks because the sight of one of Rusty's drivers coming towards them has frightened them that much.

Rusty's Rubbish Railway. Part 2.

One of Rusty's best friends is Sleepy the Signalman. Rusty gives Sleepy lots and lots and lots of money to ensure his trains run no matter how late or decrepit they are.

Day after day all the other trains get held up to let Rusty's trains past. This makes the drivers and the passengers very angry and you can hear them calling Rusty's trains rude names as they amble through places like Bristol, Exeter, Salisbury and Portsmouth.

Sleepy doesn't care as Rusty bought him a nice big comfy chair to sleep in.