On Your Bike

Hello there fellow Grump's.

Cycling. It's a healthy, cheap and largely easy way to get around  and Harrogate lends itself pretty well to cycling and it can be as quick as taking the car on most days.  Quite a lot of people cycle around town from kids to commuters to serious cyclist who compete in races and wear the tightest Lycra of all.

I myself am a cyclist and cycle for much-needed exercise and to see the beauty of the countryside surrounding our lovely town.  I should reassure you at this point that I don't possess any Lycra-based cycling clothing - it's not a good look for a fat lad.  When I was 10 years old I passed my cycling proficiency test. Now when you're 10, this is a big deal as at the time the lessons were given by a proper road safety officer from the council and the test was taken in front of the local policeman.  I passed with flying colours and learned the basics of bike maintenance, road safety and the Highway Code and to be honest what I learned hasn't left me.  So, I try to be a good cyclist and a good motorist but when in saddle it's easy to see why cyclists and motorists don't get on.

However, the point of this rant is that a great many cyclists aren't really cyclists.  The people who have proper bikes with brakes and lights and a helmet are proper cyclists.  They ride on the road and follow the Highway Code. It is the others that are the subject of this rant. The non-cyclists, the people on bikes who don't give a shit about rules and regulations or pedestrians or motorists or even their own safety.  These are the people that ride on the footpath - the area designated for pedestrians.  Not only that but when they get to a pedestrian crossing they actually press the button and cross when the light turns green. And they ride the wrong way up one-way streets, and in pedestrianised areas.

What kicked this off was a sight I saw last night at 11pm on Skipton Road which made me so mad.  There he was - knob head biker. He was riding on the footpath, with no lights, no helmet, and.....speaking on his mobile phone.  But he's not alone - he has many knob head accomplices in Harrogate.  They don't think the rules apply to them and they don't give a shit.  However, if they get injured or they injure someone else then they're guaranteed to swear it's not their fault.

And what of these bikes that kids have at present with no brakes?  What are their parents thinking of buying them in the first place, and letting them on the road with them?  They are illegal for Christ's sake - why would you allow your child to ride an illegal bike?

So, there we have it - the Grumpy view of cyclists and the lower form of cycling life, knob head biker.  If you see the latter, do give him a little wave and just check he's sitting the right way round on the saddle

Hotel No Hope

What is it with hotels and their misleading and delusional descriptions of their premises?  This week I went to Plymouth to visit the local depot of the company I work for and wanted to stay somewhere close.  So, using Laterooms.com I booked into this place – the photos made it look good and the reviews showed 86% satisfaction.  So, I booked it and off I went!

And now for the reality.  The hotel’s website promises a “secluded location”. This means it is down a lane in the middle of nowhere, just past a derelict garage.

Arriving, I was pleasantly surprised - the picture is accurate enough – the building itself is lovely and built from natural slate.

However, driving into the car park, the first thing that greets you is a scrap car and a pile of junk – just the job!

So, on to reception and I’m checked in to room 11 up some stairs that creak like they are about to collapse.  In the corridor on the way to the room is this:-

     

The table lamp on the window sill has a trailing cable which is clearly a trip hazard – but why would you want a table lamp on a window sill in a corridor?

Outside the room is a vacuum cleaner – very welcoming!

So, in I go and the first issue is that the door handle is broken although the door does lock with the key.  This is a comfort as I’ve stayed in hotels in Russia where the doors don’t lock!

The room itself is a good size and has a double bed and a set of bunk beds.  The green carpet is horrifically stained and some of the furniture makes Ikea shit look like Chippendale. The dressing table has a panel hanging off it and the veneer has peeled off.

However, it is the stains on the carpet that worry me – thoughts naturally turn to what are they and why are they there?  There are several but the one by the light switch is the worst.  I do have pictures but as there are some squeamish people around I won't post them.  Think big globules of salad cream and you won't be far off. Draw your own conclusions.

In the bathroom, the toilet seat is clearly prison issue and the plumbing work is atrocious.  The radiator piping has been put through some roughly cut holes in the ceiling and the shower installation is seventies style.  Worst of all is all the congealed dust and fluff in the extractor fan – how hard would it have been for the cleaner to give this a quick brush with the vacuum cleaner that’s parked outside the room?

                                 

Back in the bedroom I daren’t even look inside the kettle.  So, I go back and check the website to make sure I’ve got the right place.  The website makes various embellishments of the truth but search as much as you like and there is no mention of any stains on the carpet, trailing extension leads to lights in the corridor and a scrap vehicle in the car park.

It is clear that the management do not inspect the rooms and consider things from the guest’s perspectives. If they do then they clearly don’t look very hard. I’ve no doubt that this place was lovely at one time but it is so far removed from being a habitable and welcoming place that to even call it a hotel is stretching the truth somewhat.

The breakfast was awful and I, yes, even I left most of it as it was bland, greasy and lukewarm. And it took ages to come considering I was the only mug in the place.

The nature of my job means I stay in hotels all over the place, both in the UK and abroad but this is one of the worst to date.  It angers me that shit-holes like this can more or less put what they like on websites, most of which is clearly misleading, and seemingly get away with it.  I know times are hard and that hotels have trouble filling their rooms but most of the stuff I’ve described here could be put right in less than an hour – the management simply need to look at things through the eyes of their guests.  Why you would allow a scrap car in the car park is beyond me and the reception entrance was littered with cigarette ends – all things that could and should be sorted out.

So, if you were thinking of visiting this place, think again.  There is a very nice bus shelter further down the road without any stains.



The Cliche - A Victory for Common Sense

Those of you who know me would probably agree that I'm a few pounds overweight.  In terms of body mass index or what ever it is, I am the optimum weight - for someone 8 feet 9 inches tall.  So, apart from the odd bike-ride (without lycra before you ask), I need some form of exercise.  I've tried gyms and running but find it all very dull and most Harrogate gyms are full of hair-gelled pretty-boys trying to lift more weights than are good for them and women who exercise only until they think they may perspire before running back to the changing room lest anyone sees them sweat.  And it's the devil's own job trying to find a gym that does a good bacon sandwich.

So, a couple of years ago I found a form of exercise that suited me, was fun to do and was beneficial from a health point of view.  There was also a fantastic social side to it and I've made a great many friends as a result of undertaking this form of exercise.  It's called Armed Forces Fitness and is military-style circuit training which uses current and ex-military instructors so they know a thing or two about training, and about motivation.  For me, the motivation part is as important as the actual exercise as basically I'm a lazy bastard who needs a kick when it comes to exercise and the encouragement and driving works for me.  Only last week in the warm-up the words "Huddart, get your belly off the ground" rang out as I tried to skive doing a few press-ups.  Before I started, I could not have run around Harrogate's Stray for an hour doing vigorous exercise but now I can.  I know I'll never be in the top group but I'm not bothered about that, all I want is to be a bit fitter week on week.  Perhaps if I gave up beer and pies this may come a bit easier but I digress.

So, a few weeks ago, I got a call from Jonny Quinn who is the owner of Armed Forces Fitness and he told me that Harrogate Borough Council had contacted him with a view to putting boot camps, as they wrongly named them, out to tender.  This meant that despite setting up a business over the past 3 years and attracting over 250 members, some Council jobs-worth thought, "this seems popular, let's have a slice of money from it".  So, Jonny completed the tender which was a woeful document given that it came from a local authority who use tenders as a major part of their procurement process - there had been no consultation with anyone who used AFF or any of the other fitness groups that operate on The Stray.  His tender was not successful.  The contract, despite Harrogate Borough Council having a "buy local" policy, was awarded to a company in Wetherby, West Yorkshire.

When I heard this news I was livid.  The Council told Jonny that AFF would have to stop running classes on The Stray from 1st May and that the new company, Matt Woods Boot Camps, would take over the rights for "boot camps".  For a start, I quickly established that Matt Woods, who I'm sure is a lovely bloke, had no experience in military fitness and had no military instructors.  His Facebook page had 14 followers as opposed to the 500+ of AFF.  I sent Matt Wood several emails quizzing him about his classes and got some very evasive answers, then he stopped replying.  He had committed himself to a three-year contract with Harrogate Borough Council which was in the region of a total of £24,000.  The basic flaw here of course was that he would have no members, or certainly not from the AFF guys as the training he offered was like a cosy chat over tea and scones compared to the hard-core stuff we are used to from AFF.  So my first question to HBC's chief executive was where was Matt Wood's revenue going to come from?

As well as contacting HBC, I also contacted Andrew Jones, our MP, and Ruby Kitchen from The Harrogate Advertiser.  Ruby immediately asked the question of HBC, as I had done, if they thought their actions were legal first and foremost.  The Stray is owned by the Queen and forms part of the Estate of The Duchy of Lancaster and is managed by Harrogate Borough Council under the terms of an Act or Parliament called The Stray Act 1985 which also has some amended by-laws.  I'm not really sure if Queen Lizzie the Second gives two shits about who runs around on The Stray but I guess she is comforted by the fact that it's in the safe hands of Harrogate Borough Council. This is sarcasm folks.  Ruby continued to question along this line and thankfully on Wednesday morning last week HBC contacted Jonny to tell him the good news - they were acting outside their powers by trying to charge for the use of The Stray.  All future attempts at charging were to be shelved and AFF was free to continue.  To say that I was delighted was an understatement.  Not only would I be free to carry on doing the one form of exercise I enjoy, but we had taken on a hapless local authority, and won.

There are some obnoxious local councillors and none more so than Caroline Bayliss Roger De Courcey or whatever she calls herself these days, and I am led to believe she had a hand in this - in the same way she had a hand in The Turkish Baths fiasco, banning the male-only sessions and twisting the reasons for doing so.  The delicious irony of all this is that she was trying to regulate who the good people of Harrogate could and couldn't exercise with when she is not averse to a few fags apparently!

So much of what happened here epitomises what is wrong with local government - for a start, there is Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council dabbling in the running of Harrogate, both with big "head office" set ups and both with massive overheads which no private-sector business could absorb or justify.  Why not just have one?  Then there is the question of revenues - they clearly saw AFF as fair game to see what they could screw out of them rather than look closer to home and make some cost reductions through improving their own inefficiency.  Waste is evident in so much of what they do - waste that private-sector businesses cut out many years ago.

Anyway, as I cheesily said, this was a victory over bureaucracy for common sense - power to the people as Citizen Smith used to chant.  It's great that all the AFF members stood up for themselves and were very supportive of the "campaign" and there was support from many areas and in fairness, Andrew Jones acted very quickly once he was made aware of the situation but Ruby from The Advertiser was our ace and chased the Council for an answer - and the right answer at that!  So, all is well with the world again - until Harrogate Council move on to the next thing that they can fuck up.  And spare a thought for Matt Woods - I wonder what he thinks of Harrogate Borough Council?  He was the winning bidder for a service they weren't even legally entitled to charge for!  Happy Days.

Queue Rage

Last week I was moved to a higher state of annoyance by people in queues.  It happens regularly but this incident took the biscuit. It took place at the Tesco on Knaresborough Road where I’d been to fill up with fuel and was in a bit of a hurry to get to a 6pm appointment.  As I went inside to pay there were only 3 people in front of me including a lady who had a huge basket of shopping so to speed things up I joined the other queue which contained a woman who only had some chocolate, a loaf of bread, and some milk – easy I thought, this will be quick!  Bollocks, the other woman who had the well-stacked basket was probably home and had her tea cooked and watched News at Ten before the pathetic arse of a woman at my till had found her Tesco Clubcard.

Picture the scene, the cashier becomes available, arse woman steps forward and places her 3 items in the basket, cashier scans them, cashier says “£3.58 please”.  All good so far.  She has her purse, opens it and gets her bank card out (now this in itself is bad enough and could be the subject of a whole separate rant but I’ll let it go today) and just as she is about to pop it into the card machine the cashier then starts of the chain of events which tipped things over the edge.  “Do you have a Tesco Clubcard”?  Now, I don’t know about you, but all my cards are in my wallet so that I can get them out when I need them but oh no, arse woman had hers somewhere else. At first I thought that somewhere else was behind the clock on the mantelpiece at home but she seemed convinced she had it in her bag somewhere.  She started to search the bag, out came a bottle of water, car keys, mobile phone, a book, several pens, 2 cereal bars and another purse.  Now, bear in mind that the purchase was £3.58, how desperate for Tesco Clubcard points must this woman have been?  I’ve no idea what one Clubcard point is worth but this woman clearly thought that the points from her £3.58 transaction was going to be life-changing and she was determined to hold up a queue of people to find her card.  She took out the other purse and searched through that, no Clubcard.  She then went back into the bag and it wasn’t there.  There then begun a search of the side-pockets of the bag at which point she turned to me and said “I know it’s here somewhere”.  Now this action alone made her fair game for a slap but the fact that she laughed made me want to reach for her bag and tip the contents on the floor and pour the milk she was trying to buy all over them.  Eventually she found the Tesco Clubcard and all was well.  Apart from my blood pressure

Why can’t people have their method of payment ready while they’re in the queue?  Is it a surprise to them that once they’ve got to the check out they’re going to have to pay for the goods?  For god’s sake, it’s not rocket science is it?

Taurus, the Bullshit

During a pit stop at Northampton Motorway Services this morning, I was sat having a coffee minding my own business when a woman came and sat at the table next to me. Nothing odd so far. She was soon joined by another woman who she clearly hadn’t met before, but had arranged to meet there.

The woman who joined her (who was very gobby) said, “Hi, you must be Jane, I’m Sarah”. She then dropped the bombshell, “it’s so cold today – I’m a Pisces which is one of the sun signs so I don’t do cold”.  The woman she was meeting clearly noticed me look up and shake my head in bewilderment and obviously joined me in the same thought. Nutter.  She then proceeded to ask the other woman what star sign she was.

I didn’t hang around long enough to discover if it was a job interview or some sort of meeting but what a way to endear yourself to a stranger – by assuming they give a shit what astrological star sign you are.  If it had have been me interviewing her and she’d come out with that I’d probably have legged it.

This got me thinking, so I looked up my horoscope for today from one of the hundreds of sites on the internet.  I quote “The world seems to be placing obstacles in your way to test your dedication to a cause. Although you could be hitting brick wall after brick wall, you should take encouragement from scaling each one. Someone close may be facing similar challenges; perhaps joining forces could be the answer. Not only could you support one another but perhaps form a lasting partnership. Love may blossom in this period too, and it might come in an unexpected way. It’ll pay to keep an open mind. “

Basically, every word is complete horse-shit and totally irrelevant.  None of it applies to me and I suspect if I checked my horoscope every day for a week it would be the same steaming pile of poo.  Why the hell do people take all this stuff so seriously? 

The number of people making a living from being “astrologers” is alarming – talk about money for nothing! But what of the people who rely on this shit to get them through the day and who actually let it control their lives? The word “crank” springs to mind.

I don’t know much about astrology but the fact that Venus has entered Aries doesn’t make me want to take more care over decisions which is what yesterday’s horoscope suggested. I take care over decisions every time, not because there may be strange activity in Uranus. Or anyone else’s anus. I just don’t get it. And I suspect Pisces woman didn’t get the job if the other woman’s face was anything to go by.

Treasure Island

This week's blog effort is a semi-serious one brought on by the arrival of this beautiful little traffic island at the end of Albert Street in Harrogate.  When I asked North Yorkshire County Council what the hell it was via Twitter they laughingly replied " Crossing put in to improve pedestrian crossing manoeuvres at location; funded thru area-specific highway improvement funds"!  Presumably this means it helps elderly and handicapped people by providing a refuge.  Why say something in 3 words when you can use 17?

The island is lovely don't you think? But look at where they built it - right in the middle of a traffic lane and they've not been arsed to sort out the road markings yet. The question is - will it be two narrower lanes or just one, thus causing traffic to back up Albert Street as is already evident?  They really are muppets.

Anyway, when the island was under construction (it took almost 5 weeks by the way!), I rang Harrogate Borough Council about it as I thought it had all the hallmarks of their logic and tomfoolery about it.  They referred me to North Yorkshire County Council with whom I've had several spats recently about wasting money and providing shit service to those who fund it.  I've had this a few times recently - being passed from pillar to post to find things out about councils so I have done a bit of research and in our lovely county there are no fewer than 8 district councils, and the mightily ineffective North Yorkshire County Council.  The District Councils are

• Craven District Council
• Hambleton District Council
• Harrogate Borough Council
• Richmondshire District Council
• Ryedale District Council
• Scarborough Borough Council
• Selby District Council
• York City Council

Now, all of these have expensive to run offices, often multi-sited and of course NYCC have a huge office in Northallerton and other premises in most NY towns.

I really fail to see why we need 2 tiers of local government and all the massive costs they bring - surely it is now time to have one council per county and ditch this huge cost - much of which is funded by us!

And while we're at it, there are something like 53 different police forces in the UK, again all with expensive head offices, all with 53 HR, Finance. Training and Admin functions, all doing the same thing but in splendid isolation and at great cost to the tax payer.  Why not have ONE national police force with a north and south regional office set-up and let's bank the savings for something useful.

No private sector business that I know of has such a ridiculous structure as local councils and the police.  The ambulance service went some way towards this a few years ago and consolidated the individual county services into regional ones.  Judging by the number of ambulances flying around Harrogate it all seems to work so why can't councils and the police now take this lead?

I hate to see waste on this scale - every business I know is driving so hard to take cost out of their operations yet local government simply sails on using the same old fat structure that it has used for hundreds of years - time for a change I think?

Anyway, why did the chicken perform a pedestrian crossing manoeuvre?  Answers on a postcard to North Yorkshire County Council please

God Botherers

Well, we had some last Sunday and now we have another strain on our street - judging by their regularity here they must think the residents of Knox House Farm are easy-pickings.  Of course they never knock at my door - the sign I placed there years ago is simple but effective. It simply says "No Sales People or God Botherers".  They make it up the drive but see the sign and beat a hasty retreat.  In some ways it is a bit disappointing as I enjoy the banter with them but overall they are very dull people who probably had the wrong sort of toys when they were younger.

The Jehovah's Witness versions are the worst - they are almost always accompanied by children who would no doubt rather be at home with their PS2's or Barbie Hospital (blood donor ward).  When we lived back in Cumbria, we had JW's at our door on Christmas morning - they don't celebrate Christmas apparently. I took this as a massive affront to my privacy - the fact that anyone should disturb me on Christmas morning was bad enough but they came with the intention of preaching to me which is unforgivable.  Anyway, they didn't hang around long after I told them to fuck off.

What I don't understand is why they think they have to share their religion with people. I happen to like Rugby League but I don't go door-to-door to try and convert other people to it.  I like pork pies but I don't shove them down everyone throats. Just my own. Do they think they are doing society some sort of favour by pissing people off on a Sunday?  I wonder if they measure their conversion rate - how many converts do they get per hundred doors knocked? 

Anyway, I think it's cranky and weird and very old-fashioned.  I've nothing against religion or those who choose to go to church but I won't have varying versions of their religions rammed down my throat. Now, if it were pork pies.......

Alan

The Opticians

OK here we go for rant number one.  Last Thursday I was booked in to Boot's Opticians in Harrogate for my annual contact lens check.  They check my eyesight and keep showing me pictures of lovely Labradors in their guide dog catalogue which I will inevitably need at some point.

So, the appointment was for 9am and I turned up at 0855 hours and was told to sit and wait which I duly did.  There were about 5 staff milling around the reception desk and 0900hrs came and went.  Then, out pops an optician. Does she call my name for my appointment? No, she gathers the staff up and proceeds to deliver a sales review of the previous day and spell out what their targets are for that day.  As if that wasn't bad enough, the "team-talk" included this little gem - "yea, we had loads of kids in yesterday but we still managed a 73% conversion rate". Well, at that moment the penny dropped - I wasn't a "patient" or a client of 20 years with Boots, I was merely a factor in their conversion rate equation.  I assume from this that their "conversion rate" is the number of mugs who actually buy stuff divided by the number of unwitting members of the public who visit Boot's under the misapprehension that they give a shit about anyone's eyesight.

There then followed a review of the sales and the targets. If I was a Specsavers employee who had popped in to collect my prescription at the Pharmacy counter I'm sure I'd have loved to know what Boot's revenue targets were!

Anyway, at 0907hrs, after being in the store for a whole 12 minutes, I was finally ushered into the consulation room and seen by the optician who was delivering the motivational sales talk. Except that it wasn't motivational, it was delivered with all the feeling of someone who wanted to be an optician but had morphed into a sales person.

Needless to say I was not impressed by this and have now taken my business elsewhere - M Proctor is a fantastic local business which is who I've gone to now.  As well as me feeling like I'm not just someone in the "conversion rate" equation, they are considerably cheaper than Boot's so I think Boot's have unwittingly done me a favour.  I've written to Boot's head office and had a reply saying they will get the practice manager in Harrogate to investigate and get back to me; but isn't that like marking your own homework?  Surely he or she will have a vested interest in defending their staff?  Anyhow, we will see what develops.

This is why I've started the blog really - I just cannot see why in this economic climate, why this sort of thing happens and I feel compelled to share this sort of stuff.  To keep a customer of 20 years standing (or a customer of any kind) hanging around while they talk sales figures is deplorable and to me should have been done in private.  I've encountered this sort of thing before in hotels and restaurants where you can see their sales targets when the kitchen door opens.  I'm not naive enough to think most businesses don't have sales targets for they are an essential part of life for any organisation but I don't ever want to feel I'm part of them!

So, there we are, rant over - I will keep you posted on developments

Feel free to comment and add your own grumps. We're all in this together folks

Alan