Growls and Gratitude.

I had a falling out with several shop assistants in Sainsbury’s today, so they don’t like me now. It was all to do with their practice of covering the chiller cabinets with screens ‘to keep them from becoming too warm in the present hot weather.’ I pointed out why it was unnecessary in the circumstances, why it couldn’t work anyway because the management clearly don’t understand the simplest basics of heat transfer, and that its only achievement was to cause inconvenience to their customers. One of my antagonists was a supervisor who tried to give me some irrelevant guff about lorries, and when I put her on the right track she declined to speak to me again. (And I never raised my voice or used a swear word. Honestly I didn’t.) Maybe they’ll accuse me of being abusive and refuse me entry next week. It’s that kind of world now.

This afternoon I rang BT (again) to point out that they still have a wrong address on my file. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told them this, but as I said, it’s that kind of world now.

But I did get a welcome smile from a young woman when I told her I wouldn’t light a cigarette while she was downwind of me, and so I didn’t. And when she left to catch her lift I was treated to another smile and a wave. That was today’s treat. (Unfortunately, Sainsbury’s came next.)

On Meeting a Legend.

Guess what I met today: a Ghurkha! (I don’t often use exclamation marks but meeting a Ghurkha justifies it.) So, the story is this:

I mentioned recently that I was forced into an internet provision change. I used to get the signal from my BT phone line, but my broadband came from a company called Plusnet. The change to digital from analogue meant that I had to have both from the same supplier, and the easiest option was to use BT.

And so I made the phone call, all fifty four minutes of it because there was a lot to change and set up. One of the things the customer service advisor asked me was whether I wanted an engineer’s visit to help set up the new equipment. I knew what was involved and that it was fairly simple, but it occurred to me that if there was any unforeseen problem, having an engineer to hand would be useful. I said as much to the advisor, she agreed, and so I accepted her offer.

My email inbox and phone began to be inundated with emails and texts about this, that, the other, and the price of baked beans at Sainsbury’s. One thing they didn’t mention was the date and time of the engineer’s visit, and so I called again (and began to mentally consider how easy it would be to change my name by deed poll to Job. I expect half the population have done so by now, courtesy of modern communication systems.) The woman I eventually spoke to said that no such arrangement had been made. ‘You have to do it yourself,’ she said, and resistance was evidently useless.

And so the equipment was delivered and I made the attempt to steel myself for the big day, which was today. I told myself that it would all be very easy and there was nothing to worry about. Most of it I’d done before when my old router went wonky and I had to have a new, more complex, one. I re-acquainted myself with which bits went where in the old router and whether the newly added phone port was clearly defined, and opened the box containing the new one.

There was something missing! (Have another exclamation mark.) The box contained the hub (which black where the old one had been white, but I coped with that shock with remarkable ease), a power cable and transformer, and a broadband cable. But there was no Ethernet cable. ‘So how does the hub communicate with the computer?’ I asked myself. ‘Could I use the one I’ve already got, or will it be different as other things are?’ A mild sense of panic set in and so I called BT. Just as the recorded voice was saying ‘current wait times are around seven minutes’ there was a knock at the door.

I assumed it was a contractor I’ve been awaiting for ages to fix an issue on the roof and I was all set to send him on his merry way. ‘I’m on the bloody phone and I can’t waste time with you at the moment, so bog off.’ Or something along those lines. I looked through the window to see a man looking vaguely Chinese and wearing a grey baseball cap, on which was printed in large letters: BT.

I opened the door. ‘I’m from BT,’ he began, ‘come to help you set up your new router.’ ‘But they told me I couldn’t have an engineer,’ I protested. ‘Well, I was in the area so I thought I’d call and make sure everything’s OK.’ I cordially invited him in – no, not cordially; enthusiastically. (I rarely invite people in, and almost never enthusiastically. I like my private space to stay that way.)

And now the easy bit: He set everything up and it worked fine, and he did use the old Ethernet cable without a second thought. So that was that.

‘Are you Chinese?’ I asked him. ‘No, from Nepal.’ ‘Nepal? How interesting. Were ever a Ghurkha?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘One of those invited to move over here in recognition of your services to the British?’ ‘Yes.’

Well now, I shook his hand (enthusiastically.) You see, notwithstanding my anti-war sensibilities, the Ghurkhas are legendary over here in Britain. I was told as a kid: ‘Great friends of ours, the Ghurkhas. Best soldiers on earth and always faithful to we British.’ And here I am meeting one for the first time in my life, and who turns up to solve my problem literally in the nick of time and at his own volition. If ever one of the goddesses of South Asia was smiling on me, today was the day.

And that’s today’s story. And it’s all true.

Added Later: 

I forgot to mention that when the man from Nepal was leaving I had one final question to ask him:

'Have you ever seen a Yeti?'

He frowned, moved his head around a little, mumbled something incomprehensible. and then walked away. I shall forever wonder whether that was a yes, a no, or a 'why did I ever knock on this door?'

On Hypotheses and Hairy Things.

Remember the post I made recently about having become apparently invisible to the Shire’s top family? I suggested that perhaps I’d wandered through a portal into another dimension. It was intended to be tongue-in-cheek, and so is this:

Today I read an old post of mine from back in 2013 in which I related having had a bad dose of flu. I found it odd because I have no recollection whatsoever of having had flu since I moved to this house twenty years ago, even though I remember having been struck down badly by it 1994. I remember that one in every gruesome detail, so why not remember having it a mere thirteen yeas ago?

I wondered whether it was another example of dimension tripping, but then realised it was more like an example of the Mandela Effect. Then again, some people insist that the Mandela Effect is explainable by dimension tripping, so who knows. I’m not yet convinced by the parallel universes hypothesis, you see; too many questions crop up which I find hard to answer, and the examples presented on YouTube don’t address them either.

For now I feel more inclined to make a post about cryptids, the existence of which I find more convincing. I don’t have sufficient information though, so that one can wait until I have. I might say, however, that I’m reasonably convinced of the existence of one cryptid: the Sasquatch. There was an apparent sighting of one a mere thirty or so miles from here quite recently, and from the reports I’ve read I have a sense that Bigfoot is a peace-loving creature which just wants to live a quiet life away from noisy and aggressive humans. And I suspect they have an uncommon fondness for apples.

Admitting a Fault.

I had cause to ask myself a question tonight: ‘How do you respond to people who laugh easily?’ The response was simple: I like people who laugh easily, or at least I like the fact that they do. Experiencing someone’s honest laughter is pleasant. I watched an American woman called Erica something-or-other do it tonight, which was what prompted the question.

But then I thought of those people on YouTube who comment on some mildly amusing video along the lines of: ‘This was absolutely hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing for hours.’ This is obviously a wild exaggeration and patently fake. It irritates me a lot because anybody who has to exaggerate to the point of lying in order to feel they matter is revealing a kind of weakness that I find nauseatingly unpalatable.

I’m being unreasonably judgemental in saying this, aren’t I? Judgemental is what the J stands for in INFJ, which demonstrates that for all we’re generally lauded as bringers of light and empathy, we also have a bad side like everybody else. (I have several.) Unfortunately, what I don’t have are any vestments made of sackcloth, and such ashes that remain in my fire grate are very old and dusty.

An Issue of Smell and Practicality.

It’s 1940 and you’re a bomber pilot in the Luftwaffe. One night after a raid you’re making the return trip in the dawn’s early light when you get spotted by a Hurricane and badly shot up. You’re uninjured so you bail out, land in a field somewhere near Dover, get picked up by some sort of patrol, and two days later you find yourself incarcerated in a POW camp. Still wearing the same clothes. And because it’s 1940 you’re destined to spend the next five years living a restricted life at His Majesty’s Pleasure along with a few dozen of your compatriots. Still wearing the same clothes?

In all the years I’ve been alive the airways and bookshelves have been liberally splattered with dramas and documentaries about WWII, and yet I’ve never heard the need of a change of clothing being mentioned.

Good Associations and Grrrs.

Standing in my garden at twilight put me in mind of the orchestral work In a Summer Garden, by Frederick Delius. I don’t know why that never struck me before since I’m something of a fan of Delius’s music. This evening I could have imagined myself transported to his house and garden at Grez-sur-Loing in France. In fact, I did imagine it. I also discovered this evening that Delius was born on the same date as my mother.

*  *  *

The good experience I had with a contact at BT recently proved to be short-lived. It’s back to normal now with bucketfuls of stress, anxiety, and serious irritation. And a new pattern has emerged in my life: I go to bed at 3am, wake briefly just after 6, and again just after 9. It’s happened the past four nights in succession. I wonder what that’s all about.

Today's Two Notes.

A few nights ago I posted about having had a harsh email from my phone line provider regarding broadband provision and computer connections. It threw me into a bit of a funk, me not being a techno type, but today I stuck my courage to the sticking place and made the call to find out what it was about and what needed to be done.

I was connected with a Lancashire lass (middle aged I would say) from Manchester who was an absolute star. She took me through the whole thing clearly and methodically, explained all the reasoning behind it in words even I could understand, and offered to send an engineer to make the connections just in case there are any problems. Now I just have to await delivery of the new router. And to add icing on the cake, it appears that if all goes well I will be paying much less than I currently am and will have a very much faster internet connection.

When have you ever heard me say something good about BT? You have now.

*  *  *

Seasonal Shire news: The scented meadowsweet is blooming in Church Lane, the elder flowers are well advanced to promise a bumper harvest of berries for those who want to prove that elderberry wine is the equal of anything Bordeaux might offer, the golden barley is coming close to ripeness, and the wheat is still green but plumping nicely.

*  *  *

In fact, apart from a problem with arranging my transport to Ashbourne next week, it was a half decent day for a change. (My only regret is that I didn’t ask the BT lady’s name, because then I could have told you what it was.)

On the Kayak and the Cold Water.

For some reason today I was reminded of an amusing little incident during my school days. I might have told the story before in the early days of the blog, but I don’t remember and can’t be bothered search for it, so you can have it again.

Once upon a time when I was a teenager (I really was, you know, once upon a time), the boys in my high school class were taken off for the weekend to an outdoor pursuits centre. It had wooden shacks, ropes for abseiling, kayaks for canoeing, and various other oddments deemed necessary for the provision of  a fun-filled weekend risking life and limb. It also had a sizeable lake and lots of trees.

The first morning was put aside for giving each of us a kayak to sit in so we could happily paddle from one end of the lake to the other and back again. We had no idea what it was supposed to teach us or how it might add to our manly mettle, but that was the plan. And so we set off with me near the back of the group.

About 100 yds into this great adventure I was suddenly gripped by excruciating pain from cramp in both calf muscles. We’d been warned that kayaks take a bit of getting used to because they’re notoriously unstable and the trick is to keep the body in such a position in the cockpit (or whatever it’s called) to keep the little craft upright. It occurred to me that this might be difficult with both calves in the grip of excruciating pain, and so I called to the lead schoolmaster, explained my difficulty, and asked whether I should turn around and paddle back to shore. He said I should, so I dipped the port  paddle (left to the landlubbers) and began to make a 180° turn.

At that point the dear little red and white kayak grinned mischievously, overturned, and threw me unceremoniously into the lake. Fortunately, Dame Fortune was having none of it and came to my aid by dismissing both cramps completely as soon as my legs hit the cold water. Feeling somewhat relieved, I was easily able to swim to the nearest bank with the kayak in tow, and then walk back to the centre through the trees (which were rather nice I expect, although I don’t actually remember.)

Can you imagine such a situation being allowed today with our manic emphasis on risk avoidance? I expect they’d have to have a patrol boat now with lifesaving equipment bringing up the rear. Back then we just dealt with it (well, I did anyway because there was no alternative.) Maybe it was to ingratiate into us the notion that we were ‘the bulldog breed.’ Bulldogs are extinct now, although I gather kayaks aren’t.

YouTube and the Registration Obsession.

YouTube has suddenly started to throw a cocktail of new requirements and restrictions at me. One of them says: Register to like and leave comments on videos.

Where did that one come from? Why should I have to register to like and leave a comment on a YouTube video? YouTubers are constantly begging for likes and comments on their uploads.

I imagine it’s just the latest example of a pandemic sweeping so-called developed cultures in the 21^st century: registration for this, that, the other, and soon to be nearly everything else. Is it, perhaps, merely a matter of bureaucratic overkill which is something else infecting modern life in a more general sense? Or is it, as I suspect, another example of the corporate world and its insanely rich minions seeking yet another way to watch and control us so they can make more money?

Oh well, if I have to give up YouTube by way of objecting to their silly and intrusive little rules, then so be it. It would cause me some difficulty because the only time I relax these days is the final two hours before going to bed. (I set an appropriate music mix to play while I read old blog posts and the comments my old blogger pals used to leave. I have several from the Lady B, you know. They’re very precious.) But to a sad old idealist like me, principles are supremely important.

The Big Event.

My landlord has invited us all to ‘tea in the garden’ tomorrow afternoon. How very Virginia Woolf of him. I would have thought it more appropriate to have styled the event ‘tea on the terrace’, he being a kind of lord of the manor and all. Maybe he was concerned that one of the great unwashed might soil the hallowed flagstones somehow, and be too close to the interior of the mansion anyway. The odd one might even smell bad.

Will I be attending, you might ask. No. Saturday afternoon is the busiest time of the week for me, and I’m not really the type to go hobnobbing with the landed gentry anyway. Not that I have anything against him. I’ve only met him once, and then only briefly. For all I know he might be thoroughly likeable. He might be so distanced from any antiquated notion of social hierarchy that he sings ‘keep the red flag flying here’ while playing with his rubber duck in the bath.

And that brings me to an odd and unconnected thought. Why does the Republican Party in the USA use red as their colour of allegiance? Red is the colour of Russian communism. The communist Chinese flag is red. Red is universally recognised as the colour of people power, whereas the Republicans are known for the opposite proclivity. Could it have something to do with the traditional colour of British telephone boxes, I wonder. Must ask an American if ever I meet one. I should imagine Americans would be the first to accept an invitation to tea in the garden with the lord of the manor (sort of), but I don’t think we have any in these parts.