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.

daily life: Ewww, don't eat the green ones. They're not ripe yet

Valentines day is just around the corner and you want to get your loved one the perfect gift. Do you buy perfume, jewellery, perhaps even a saucepan set if you are looking for a quick divorce. No, you buy a cucumber, but not a regular cucumber, this is a heart shaped cucumber that costs twice the price of a regular cucumber.

Satisfy the woman you love with your love cucumber, only available at Sainsbury.

food: A meal for all the family.

I really love Nik-Naks and I much prefer them to a bag of Walkers. My favourite flavour for years was Sour Cream and Chive, and then one day they just stopped making them. Some bright spark at GoldenWonder who clearly has ageusia replaced them with Scampi.
Maybe I am not an expert on snack foods, but it doesn't take an expert to know Scampi flavoured corn starch tastes vile.
Scampi clearly didn't sell well because now they have replaced them with Pickled Onion in the multipacks, but I understand some odd people still buy them in the extra large individual packs.

Here's a tip Golden Wonder (owners of Nik-Naks), bring back the flavour people actually liked.

P.S. What happened to all the massive Nik-Naks you used to find in the bags, now they are just pathetic.

entertainment: The voices

I recently watched The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time: The Movie. The film isn't very good which is what I expected, but can someone explain to me why all the Persians had British accents. I can understand that the core actors were British, but why did Jake Gyllenhaal that well known AMERICAN have to put on an English accent. To be fair it wasn't a bad accent, I just have no clue why they felt it was necessary.

I can only presume that Disney felt the audience would confuse the film for an episode of 24 and start hoping Jack Bauer would turn up and kick some Terrorist arse.

daily life: IT's the System.

EDF energy have decided to update their online system, the management probably need a new project to fiddle the books with.
Normally this wouldn't annoy me, but the genius (and I expect the IT department comprises of just 1 member of staff) that works at EDF have turned off the old system before the new system is ready, greeting me with the following message

We are improving our MyAccount service and will write to let you know when it is ready for you to register for it.

Well done EDF, you've made it so I can't pay you money. With EDF being a French company they've probably gone on strike, so it's anybody's guess when it will get fixed.

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 &%$*.

daily life: Don't forget to swipe your Clubcard.

I hear you ask how I can moan about Tesco giving me Clubcard points on items I would buy anyway. From this I can conclude you don't know me very well.

Well, you may be aware that a while ago Tesco 'doubled' the value of Clubcard points so you now earn them twice as fast. What you may not be aware of is that Tesco HALVED the value of points awarded on petrol so you now have to spend £2 to get 1 solitary point. At that rate you would need to drain the middle east to buy a pencil sharpener.

You may ask yourself why Tesco did this, we will never know for sure but my theory is...

They realised that most customers spend infinitely more money on petrol than in store. I personally find Tesco products to be inferior quality and more expensive than other supermarkets, so over 70% of my points came from petrol. Tesco certainly didn't advertise the fact they cut the points awarded on petrol, but they definitely told everybody that they now get 'double Cubcard points instore'.