Wasting YOUR time?

Sunday 11th April

I had a phone call yesterday.

I like getting phone calls, it means someone out there knows I exist and I can pretend I have friends. A bit pathetic it might be, but when you've spent the best part of the week watching top gear and killing small bronze blobs.

So as I was saying, I had a phone call yesterday.

"Hello, is that Jon?"

Now, an Indian feller on the phone generally means a call centre to me, I don't have any Indian friends with that accent, so it's always a cold call. This is a strange thing since I'm on one of those lists that block cold calling.

India probably doesn't have a copy of that list.

Anyway, I don't like to be rude and slam the phone down so I played along.

"Yes, that's me."
"I'm calling you to inform you about possible security risks in windows.."

If I'd let him carry on at this point then he'd have been going for ten minutes, so I had to interrupt him to ask a fairly important question.

"I'm sorry, how did you get my number?"
"I have your number from the research department."

As if that's any sort of answer.

"I'm sorry, which research department? What company are you?"
"The research department of our company."
"That's still not an answer, how do you have my number?"
"We have the number of all windows users"
"Now that's a lie…"
"I am not lying"
"Yes you are, there's no way you have a list of windows users. You're just calling people at random assuming they have windows."

Although it's not a bad assumption, doesn't everyone use it? I should have lied and said I'm and apple user.

"Sir, please do not waste my time and hang up the phone on me."

I was quite surprised at this, I didn't realise I was wasting his time when he was the one that called me trying to sell me some crap or other I couldn't give a shit about and definitely don't need.

I was even going to tell him such if he hadn't hung up the phone right after he finished speaking, leaving me holding a dead phone in my hand and feeling a little bit dirty.

I never did find out who he worked for.

I would have liked to call him and see if he'd like to buy a bible.

We're alll going on a summer holiday...

Monday 12th April

I've discovered Hell, and it's as bad as I feared.

It's amazing how TV can turn something that seems a little irksome and turn it into the fourth level of the inferno.

I'm watching an episode of 'Coach Trip'. No, I'm stuck on a marathon session of 'Coach Trip' on More4. If you can honestly tell me that you've never seen it then you should feel gratified, though I am now going to sully your soul by describing it in gut wrenching detail just so that you can experience the agony I'm going through right this minute.

See, you take 6 couples, 12 people in total and you ram them onto a coach for a tour round Europe taking part in different activities in the various towns and cities that you stop in. So one day you're learning how to make mustard in Dijon and the next day you could be curling in a Swiss Olympic training centre.

Now the journey and the activities sound like they may be fun, and let's face it you want to throw yourselves into new things and try and find the fun in something you hadn't considered before.

That's it. That's the sum total of the good bits to the concept. But ooooooooooooooo where to start with the hell that is the coach trip?

Ok, I have one. I've been on coach trips before now and even if you could possibly grant that there might be enough leg room for someone of my size or even a stumpy-legged dwarf then you've still got to admit that they're small poky holes that smell of other people and wee.

That's to start.

Then there's other people. If you had to go on a group holiday wouldn't you choose to go with friends? Or even people that shared the same interests as yourself? Let me put it this way, if hell is other people then what do you think the chances are of actually getting on with ten people randomly selected from the population of the country, much less all of them.

As an example, why not go into your local town centre now and spark up a conversation with the first 10 strangers people you meet and see how you get on.

Oh god. I've just seen a scene where the two young lassies are stood on top of a mountain in Switzerland where there's ski runs on one side, glaciers on the other and some beautiful landscapes. They decided to have a discussion about how they couldn't live there because there's no Top Shop, H&M and no sun bed shops.

I swear if I was there the urge to push them off the mountain would have been overwhelming.

Holy mother of pearl, one of the women is a self proclaimed professional clairvoyant.

Anyway, the worst part is at the end of each day where each pair votes as to who to get rid of with all the bitching and sniping involved in that. It's all openly discussed at GREAT length as to why you feel that somebody should be sent home. Let me tell you, it really adds to the party atmosphere to hear why everybody is really irritated by everybody else.

I tell you, I'd probably have to kill everybody on that coach before we left Dover in the big Union Flag coloured bus.

Yeah, that helps, because we all know how much foreigners love to see the British advertising their presence.