Click to Enter

I spend a fair amount of time looking at websites. There are a number of reasons behind this but, more recently, it's to look at bands websites. And they seem to be the worst offenders.

The following is something I am seeing all to often:

"(Band Name) Click to Enter"

Normally over an image.

Click to enter? Why the fuck do you think I've bothered to come here in the first place? To sit and look at your shitty logo? To decide if, having entered your URL and pressed enter, I might want a second chance to think if I want to go to your website after all? Just fucking get on with it and let me look at whatever shit it is you've decided to share with the world.

Half Term

My 45 minutes of freedom (or lunchtime, if you prefer. I don't take an hour because I come in 'late'. In fact, I should only take half an hour. And I normally come in at about 9.15am, instead of 9, so strictly speaking I should only take 15 minutes. But who's counting? I'm certainly not. Maybe they are? But fuck 'em. What are they gonna do? Sack me?) are rarely very jovial - they are, after all, sandwiched between 'Morning' and 'Afternoon', during which times I have to work. They are even less of a pleasure this week for one main reason - Half Term. And, more specifically, parents and children.

First of all - mothers with pushchairs. Just because you are pushing one of these things doesn't automatically mean you have the right of way, or the right to make your way, however you see fit. Fine - I'll open a door for you and make room if it's reasonable. But don't expect me to stop dead, move to the side and, in the end, take a completely different route to the one I was going to take just because you decided to pro-create and push your little pro-creation anywhere you like. You probably have all day to be pushing it around, I've got 45 minutes, so why don't you wait a fucking minute and realise there are other people in the world.

Secondly - the children. I know I know - they're only kids. And yeah, they're cute sometimes. But they're also fucking annoying. There I am vaguely looking over some shelves of discounted books when a 6 or 7 year old boy decides to test the fragility of my ear drums:

"MMMMUUUUUUMMMM. THEY'VE GOT FACE PAINTS OVER HERE!!!!!!!"

No response from the mother would lead you or I to believe that she is otherwise engaged with one of the other four children with her or, more surprisingly, the cashier, as she is actually buying something. But I watched the child quite specifically and at no point did he turn round to see if 'Mum' was actually listening. So for all he knew, she had heard and was coming over to look with him. That didn't matter:

"MMMMUUUUUUMMMM. THEY'VE GOT FACE PAINTS OVER HERE!!!!!!!"

Were I of slightly less stable mind, Mum would have been as sick of hearing about face paints as I was, sitting in hospital waiting for them to be removed from little junior's throat.

Thankfully (for him) I just left the shop - and had to jump out the way of a pushchair.

Call Centres

I've always hated call centres, but this week has been particularly busy chez moi. There's so much about them that I hate I really don't know where to start. There's the scripted lines, the 'exclusive offers', the smug 'so you don't want to save money then?' response when I turn them down. So I've been fighting back and I think I'm getting better.

Let me just say, first of all, that I am not overly agressive to the call centre 'operative'. It's not their fault that they do what they do. In fact, I feel quite sorry for them and try my best to cheer them up. It's hard though - especially with a stinking hangover when they've just got me out of bed.

Some of them leave themselves wide open, though, and I try to take advantage. This evening's call was one such example:

Him: Is this Mr Herbert?
Me: Yes.
Him: Mr Herb...I am call...offer you a once...mobile phone. It will...just two pounds ninety nine a month.
Me: I'm sorry - you have a terrible connection. Are you really trying to sell me a telecommunications product? Because you're not really inspiring confidence in me.
Him: Errr...yes we are but...from Phillipines.
Me: You're calling me from the Phillipines?
Him: Yes
Me: Cool. What's the weather like there?

He sort of caught on after that that I wasn't going to buy a phone from him. At least he was fairly honest, though. It's the other lot, who try and reel you into a deal by claiming to be giving something away, that I really hate. I mean, I know I'm never going to buy anything from any of these bastards, but I like to listen to 'what I could have won' sometimes. Picture the scene - 10am Saturday morning. The previous evening saw my first excursion to a certain nightclub in about a year. I'm in bed - I can't sleep because the room won't stop spinning. The phone rings - I think it might be my friend who I am supposed to be meeting in 3 hours:

Me: Ughh
Him (thick Indian accent - which isn't necessarily important, but adds a certain something to the conversation if you adopt it whilst reading this): May I speak with Mr Herbert please?
Me: Ughh.
Him: Mr Herbert. I have a free Sony Ericsson mobile phone here for you. You are one of only 200 people selected to receive this special offer of a FREE mobile phone. It is a Sony Ericsson K750i (or something) with a 1.9 pixel digital camera, video messaging, colour screen, blue tooth, gold plated, diamond encrusted, makes the tea, puts you to bed, pulls you women and it will cost you absolutely nothing.
Me: OK. And it's free yeah?
Him: Yes Mr Herbert - absolutely free for you.
Me: Cool. Do you have my address there?
Him: Yes, it's blah blah blah blah blah.
Me: That's it. Nice one mate - stick it in the post. I'll see you later.
Him: No, Mr Herbert. Please wait one second. You have to pay £15.99 a month line rental.
Me: £15.99 a month?
Him: Yes Mr Herbert.
Me: Well it's not fucking free then, is it?
Him: The phone is free, but you must pay £15.99 a month line rental.
Me: Ok, I don't want line rental. I just want the phone.
Him: You have to have line rental to have a phone Mr Herbert.
Me: Not if I don't want to make calls I don't. I just want to use the camera.

The converstation degenerated from there into small talk about the weather in New Delhi at this time of year and, in the end, he promised to take my name and number off their list.

The Lottery

When the lottery first started I thought it was only running for one week. My mum asked me if I was going to play and, when I found out it was going to happen every week, I said something like 'Yeah I might do. There's plenty of time though. Someone else can win this first one.'

Because it seems so easy, doesn't it? I mean, six numbers out of 49. Easy!! It can't be that hard - it won't be long till I win. Right? These days I even double my chances of winning by buying two lines. TWO! That's twelve numbers! I can't lose! Except I can. And always do.

That's my main problem with the lottery. It's too bloody hard to win it. I know - that's not exactly news.

The other problem I have with the lottery is the sharing of the prize fund. Ok, so I might not win the jackpot. But 5 numbers, for example. That's a bit more realistic, especially with my two lines (that's 12 numbers!). And five numbers is still alot of numbers, isn't it? It's only one less than six. So what do you win with five numbers? This week : £1,754. That's it! Not even two fucking grand! The winner - £5 million! Five million pounds! One number less - one thousand seven hundred! I'm not saying five numbers should also get millions, but seriously - spread it out a bit more, yeah?

Not that it matters anyway - I rarely get one number, which, considering I buy 12, is surely against the rules of probability, or something. Maybe not. I don't like to go into the details of the maths behind it really. I'd prefer to be ignorant and have the feeling that I *might* win rather than the reality that I probably won't.

Mind you - I wouldn't be surprised if I had won it and not realised, what with all the different draws they do now. It used to be simple - one draw, Saturday night, six numbers, match them up. Job done. The inclusion of the bonus ball was stretching it a bit, in my opinion, let alone Euromillions, Daily Play, Thunderball and whatever other shit they're doing now. But maybe that's what they want. Not only are they making more money by introducing new games and making people feel guilty about not giving themselves the chance to win them, they're also keeping more money by making it more difficult to work out whether you've actually won anything or not.

Thankfully I don't have a regular six numbers that I use, otherwise I would run the risk of 'winning' when I hadn't bought a ticket. I only use three numbers the same each time which means I only miss out on £10 if I don't do it. But I don't check the numbers if I don't buy a ticket so it's of no conscequence really anyway. Which reminds me - lucky dips. They're a fucking joke aswell. Randomly selected numbers? Randomly selected my ass. Not a week goes by without my 'lucky dip' containing at least two numbers the same as my own 'hand picked' numbers. And the other four in the lucky dip are useless aswell - they never win.

Celebrities

I had the unfortunate experience of watching Britney Spears on the TV at the weekend - that programme where she films herself with a camcorder. As you might expect, it's awful. Truly the most self indulgent half hour of TV tripe I have ever seen. The part of it that really annoyed me, however, was when Ms Spears filmed herself asking her 'support staff' probing, personal questions. I'm fairly sure most of the people hadn't actually met her before, spending their time 'behind the scenes' taking green M+Ms out of packets, or whatever it is they do. Anyway, Britney took it upon herself to find out what everyones favourite 'sexual position' was, regardless of whether they wanted to tell her or not. What ensued was amateur-quality video footage of her 'staff' being hounded into answering 'the question', most of whom clearly didn't want to but were too polite and, presumably, too in need of keeping their jobs to tell her where to stick her question. Now, if Britney, no - if anyone were to stick a camcorder in my face and demand to know what my favourite sexual position was, I would imagine, or at least hope, that the conversation would go something like this:

Britney: Hey, what's your favourite sexual position?
Me: None of your business.
Britney (pushing camera closer): Come on - how do you like to do it?
Me (staring into camera): Fuck off you talentless bitch.

I also read an article in the Guardian about Charlotte Church. It was advertising, believe it or not, a reality TV show about her. The writer spent most of the article congratulating Ms Church on how 'down to earth' she is, unlike other 'celebrities'. The parting shot of the article was an exchange between (a pissed) Charlotte and a (posh) fellow party goer:

Charlotte: Where's the bog, I need a wee.
Posh party-goer: (looks shocked)

Now, if they're so interested in normality I would gladly introduce them to some of my friends who have much less respect for posh people and far looser tongues. I don't imagine that's what they're after though.

The problem I have with this is not that Charlotte Church is 'normal'. It's the fact that it's celebrated and written about, which surely then makes her 'not normal'. If we're admiring the fact that she's not like other celebrities, surely not putting her in the papers for picking her nose (or asking where the bogs are) would be a much better way of doing it.

I think the real problem here is not the celebrities themselves but the people surrounding them and 'commenting' on them. Particularly with that Spears bitch. Come on Britney workers - instead of muttering 'missionary' under your breath or looking away embarassed, tell her to fuck off.