ultra-mini-moan: on the trail!

This!
Need I say more?

Just imagine the horrific accident that could have been caused if a blind driver had pulled around the corner into the car park, there is no way their guide dog would have been able to see this obstruction from the passenger seat! Quite literally a Trail(er) of Obstruction!

mini-moan: a good hump

You are probably still wondering where the epic post is, I assure you it is merely stuck in a puddle and will dry out soon.

I've got the hump with humps. Everywhere I go I'm getting humped, regularly 5 or more humps in the space of a few minutes, it's leaving me tired and it's certainly not doing my backside any favours. For the love of my bottom give me a break from the humping!
So I get to my local Tesco Extra after being humped to within an inch of my life, now I've got to manoeuvre into a really tight space and while trying not to scratch the sides I get humped from behind... they'd only gone and put a hump in front of the parking bay.

mini-moan: define 'definition'

Today while travelling down the A299, oh how I miss driving down the A299, I noticed a sign moving past me at exactly 70 miles per hour, or more precisely a sign while my motorised vehicle was moving at exactly 70mph for that is the speed limit of the A299. Anyway the sign read 'Prohibited Traffic [this way]'. What? If you want the traffic to go down the road then it can't be 'Prohibited' for the word means;

Formally forbid (something) by law, rule, or other authority.

Or perhaps it's a new way for the government to raise money and just down the road, out of sight, are a crack team of police ready to capture any individuals who has chosen to ignore the rule prohibiting them and slap them with a MASSIVE FINE, certainly an imaginative way to solve the budget deficit.

mini-moan: we were on a break.

It always happens, you are driving down the motorway or a dual carriageway keeping a safe and sensible distance between your vehicle and the vehicle in front and suddenly a car/van/lorry manoeuvres itself into the gap and you suddenly have to slow down or your two vehicles will be quickly transformed into a stretched limo.

What is the cause of this mentality? Are people in such a rush to get to their destination that the extra 5ft of progress they gain is so important?
Well, they may arrive 1 second earlier because of this, but when they cause an accident I can guarantee they won't be arriving on time.

driving: read between the line.

My the parking spaces in supermarkets are far too small, I only drive a Clio MK III.5 and they are too small for my car. Originally this was going to be a rant about the small size of parking bays in public car parks (especially pay and display car parks) and how this is to maximise profits at the expense of actually being able to park a car.
Breathe.
Then, as I was getting into my car after a fruitful trip to Tesco in which I didn't purchase any fruit I saw a fine example of parking. I took a quick picture of it with my phone for the world to see. If there are any readers of my blog working at the DVLA or for the police could you send me the address of this :censored:? However I then noticed it wasn't just the blue Ford Ka (I really hate the Ford Ka, from it's pathetic name to the stupid egg like shape) but a white van also parked across two bays. So which vehicle originally parked like such a twat? I'm guessing it was probably the white van.

But this is the issue with one person parking across two bays, it causes a domino effect and everybody ends up straddling the lines. It's happened to me, the last bay in the car pack is next to a BMW (and it is nearly always a BMW, I wouldn't be surprised if a BMW was parked straddling the lines before these vehicles pulled up and caused the whole thing) taking up more than one bay and I've had to squeeze in with my wheels in two separate bays because of this, then the person parking next to me does the same. Alternatively just managing to get into a single bay but being unable to exit the vehicle because the door won't open wide enough due to the obstructive BMW.

So if you see a car straddling the lines, feel free to break open the fuel filler cap and throw a burning match into the pertol tank. I've often found that a crowbar is very effective at prying open a filler cap with the minimum of effort. Head over to the tgwmcm official store to pick-up a tgwmcm branded 'line straddler preparedness kit'

Driving: stay at pump

I'm sure many of you have been at a petrol station, you've already paid, but you can't leave because the owner of the car in front is still inside the shop. To make it worse, after 10 minutes that feel more like 10 hours, the owner of said car trundles out laden with half-a-dozen shopping bags with content ranging from asbestos through to zebra steaks.

The first fault lies with the petrol station who have failed to understand sticking 2 extra pumps in to 'maximise profits', therefore requiring the pumps to be placed just far enough apart to successfully dispense the delicious petrol, ultimately results in so many queues you halve the amount of customers you can serve in any given period of time.

Secondly the moron that decides to do their weekly shop at the petrol station needs to be locked in a deep dark pit while children point and laugh at them. And why is it always woman? I could understand if it was a single man whose idea of 'Haute Cuisine' is a creme egg served with a 'Frijj' jus, they could therefore shop quite comfortable at the 'Gas 'n' Go', but when you start asking the spotty teen behind the counter where the foie gras is maybe you should change your shopping habits.

driving: sirens song

If you drive regularly you probably listen to the radio from time to time, and in my case BBC Radio 2 is my station of choice, I do like a bit of the Jeremy Vine show.

But what annoys me is when songs with sirens or horns are played on the radio. How many times have you been trundling along and suddenly hear what you believe to be a police car or ambulance. You check your mirrors, look in your blind spot, trying to work out if you need to pull over. Unable to locate said vehicle, and slightly confused you assume it was in the distance and continue your drive. But alas, yonder sound does alight in your ears once more (I don't know why I went all Elizabethan either), and again you can't locate the source of the siren. Then it dawns on you, it was on the radio, some idiot decided to put the sound of a police car on the song, and some bigger idiot chose that song for the play-list

Everybody knows (yes mum, I put in the Cohen reference) that 99.99999% of all radio listening occurs in a motor vehicle, so it doesn't take a genius to realise broadcasting such sounds can be incredibly dangerous. Imagine if each of the ~8million drive time audience simultaneously started checking their mirrors, how many thousands would perish in the 'Great blind-spot check of 2011'

Therefore I call on the UK government, no the ECJ to legislate that any song containing a siren, alarm or horn should be banned from radio broadcast.

I'm a public service you know.

driving: OK Commuter.

There is one thing us Brits are renowned for across the globe, our love of queuing. I hate to break it to you world but that just isn't correct any more, Britain has forgotten how to queue.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than the Petrol Station, where we queue up to almost literally burn money, only we don't queue up to do this any more because a new trend has reached Britain - The Pump Jump.

Next time somebody jumps the queue on you at the petrol station, or you see somebody Pump Jumping I want you to climb out of the car and chant Pump Jumper, Pump Jumper while pointing at the offender. Perhaps even rig up a crude petrol bomb because frankly, what better place is there to do that than a petrol station.

Together, we can stop Pump Jumping. Also, buy* one of my custom designed T-Shirts that clearly aren't just mocked up in MS Paint.

*To order a T-Shirt send me your sort code and account number and I will take the necessary funds and email you the T-Shirt via the internet somehow.

driving: You turn if you want to...

... the lane is not for turning.

On my regular commute I drive on a variety of roads, and being a sensible individual I am aware that some actions are legal on a B-road but not on a Motorway.
As part of my drive I use a 1 mile stretch of dual carriageway, but something recently caught my eye as I trundled along this innocuous stretch of road. At first I couldn't place my finger on it, but then I noticed that a forest of 'No U-Turn' signs had sprouted on the left carriageway, every 30ft a warning to motorists that 'U-Turns are prohibited on this road' glared down at me.

I can only speculate as to what incident sparked the Highways Agency to place over 50 signs on this 1mile stretch or road, especially as they are only present on the left carriageway.

driving: Indicative of societies decline.

Many years ago Florence Lawrence (what were her parents thinking) had the brilliant idea to stick some lights on a car which indicated your intention to turn left or right.


The idea has since become a requirement for all cars largely to prevent accidents. Failure to use indicators can even prevent you passing a driving test. It's just common sense to use them, it's not like they are sophisticated pieces of electronic equipment that require a Ph.D..


So why does nobody ever use their indicators? 
Just once I'd like to stop at a roundabout and have an inkling of which direction a car is intending to go. Worse than people that don't use indicators are those that can't turn the correct one on. I'm tired of idling like an idiot doing complex vector calculations to determine if that purple Micra is going to take the next exit. 
Perhaps if their was an app you could install on your iPhone which you used for indicating people would use it to prove they have an iPhone. Maybe I should patent iNDICATE, it could make me a fortune.

Maybe the government should run a new campaign.


THINK! Use your indicator you &%$*.