Cameron the buffoon

David Cameron a Politician – well he acts more like a wannabe boy band singer trying to impress his work colleagues with details of his ‘important friends’.  How can a man in Cameron’s position even think that he should be publicly quoting Her Majesty’s opinions on anything?  Is this something old school politicians would have done – I think not.  Let’s put it the other way – do you think that Her Majesty would quote David Cameron’s opinions in public?

Her Majesty is dignity and grace personified, David Cameron is tactless and worst of all it appears that he engages his mouth before his brain.  And this man is responsible for governing the UK?  Utter madness.

Possible waste of money

The photo below shows the lack of thought that some people put into their ‘personalised’ number plates.  It may be considered ‘funny’ but if you are a woman, would you really want to drive a car with this number plate?  How many times will people stop you for an offer?  And if you are a man then what exactly does it say about you?  Do you really think you partner will find it amusing?

A really good way to waste fifteen hundred Euros for that is the cost of a personalised number plate here in Malta!

🙂

And they paid 1500 Euros for this

Stop me for a…….

The Op

A couple of years or so ago I was on vacation, as I often am, and suddenly experienced an agonising pain in my stomach.  The pain lasted around a minute and then suddenly disappeared completely.  A few weeks later I noticed a small bump had appeared just above my navel.  Fearing the worst I went to see my doctor who decided that I had a Hernia and sent me to a specialist at a local private hospital.  This gentleman confirmed the synopsis and, when I told him of the pain I had experienced informed me that that was probably when the tear happened.

Being rather naïve I mentioned that if the cost of the repair procedure was only a few hundred Euros I would get it performed privately thus avoiding joining a long queue for a National Health operation.  The specialist, who was actually a surgeon, asked me to visit the In Patients Department and get them to furnish me with an estimate.  I soon realised that private operations are priced in thousands of Euros not hundreds!

So I went to the Government (non-private) Hospital called Mater Dei, filled in a few forms and awaited my turn.  Eighteen months passed by and I had heard nothing from them. 

Later that month I was in the gym changing room one morning when I spotted another guy who had obviously had a recent operation on his stomach. I asked him what had been done and he told me it was a Hernia repair which had been performed at Mater Dei,  I have to say that it looked as if someone had taken a chain-saw to him.  It really wasn’t pretty and it made my mind up.  No matter what the cost I would get my operation done privately.

So I started looking at other European Countries who offered this sort of surgery and found it could be performed in quite a few places at varying prices starting from around one thousand five hundred Euros.  Eventually, mainly due to the worry of procedural complications resulting in the necessity of future return visits, I decided to get it done locally.

Yesterday was the day!

My wife and I arrived an hour and a half before surgery was due and the preliminaries all went well.  A few forms were completed, a few questions answered, an initial amount paid – I asked whether they took roughly fifty percent up front just in case we didn’t survive the operation!  Soon I was on my back in the Operating Theatre with arms outstretched waiting for the anaesthetist to put me to sleep.  I didn’t even get to count to ten and then suddenly a nurse was holding my hand asking me whether I felt OK and informing me that the operation was over.

I was taken to our private room where my lovey wife was waiting anxiously.  Everyone, her included, said I should try to sleep but I find that sleep either happens or it does not and yesterday afternoon was not the chosen moment.  I lay in bed in a semi-drugged state aware of everything that was going on including the rather annoying Blood Pressure monitor which seemed to fire up every ten minutes tightening the band around my arm for around twenty seconds and taking its reading.

A few hours passed and I was asked to take a drink, eat some sandwiches and then go to the bathroom – presumably just to prove that certain bodily functions were still working.  Everything was fine and we were allowed to leave, having first paid the remainder of the invoice.  The total price was a very reasonable one thousand three hundred and forty Euros plus another forty Euros for medication – pain killers (lots of those) and a course of antibiotics.

So I am currently confined to my bedroom with no chance of a visit to the gym or a drive of my newly acquired BMW in the near future.

Some occasional minor pain and a reduced bank balance but all in all a very good experience. 

Now not a lot of people seem to know this

Or at least, if they do know about it then they haven’t mentioned it publicly. 

Russian people pronounce some names starting with the letter H as a G – thus they speak about J K Rowling’s Gary Potter, Hercule Poirot’s sidekick Gastings, (it should maybe also be Gercule Poirot but Russians pronounce it ‘Ercule?). 

They pronounce the Chinese ex UK colony Gong Kong and the German World War II leader and criminal Adolf Gitler.  The last state of America is pronounced Gavai and its capital Gonolula. Fortunately, I presume that not many of them live in Hemel Hempstead otherwise the locals might become confused!

I have also met a Russian woman whose first name was Alla – I hope that she will never visit Iran as her name could cause her a few problems.

Now here’s a thing

I am a bit of a football fan and spend a fair amount of time in front of the TV watching my team, and any other team if the truth be known.  Now what do you think is the worst thing about football?  As a supporter of a club what would annoy you the most?  In my opinion, humble or not, it would be finding out that your team had been cheated out of something because of bribery, to match officials or maybe even one of your own players.

Imagine your team is playing the final match of the season, needs a win to stay up and your centre half gives away a very clumsy penalty in the last minute to give the opposition an undeserved 1-1 draw.  Or maybe the team are playing a European match, win the home leg 2-0 and then lose the away leg 3-0 with some very strange refereeing decisions?  How would you feel if you subsequently found out that the culprit had been bribed?

However, it seems that UEFA disagree with this assessment.  To them bribery is just worthy of a small slap on the wrist, they obviously think it’s all part of the game.  In 1997, thirteen years after it was finally proven that Nottingham Forest had been cheated out of a UEFA Cup final place in 1984 because Anderlecht had bribed the match official with a paltry few thousand pounds, UEFA initially said that they could do nothing because the offence happened more than ten years previously!  They finally succumbed and banned Anderlecht the next time they qualified for a European competition.

Was that really a sufficient warning to other clubs not to go down that road?  Anderlecht’s players and officials had the wonderful experience of a Euro Final and all they got was a one year ban.  Do you think that was fair punishment?  I think the club should have been banned from Europe for ten years at least.  What were UEFA trying to say exactly with their actions?  Nothing initially because the offence had happened ten years earlier – so basically that statement meant, cheat and get away with it for long enough and we won’t do anything!

In Italy it seems that bribery is a regular part of football.  During the 2004-5 football season it was proven that at least four of Italy’s major clubs, Lazio, Milan, Juventus and Fiorentina, had been involved with bribing match officials.  Of the four only Juventus were demoted from Serie A, the other three clubs just had points deducted the following season!  Milan, who were initially ejected from the Champions League for season 2006/7 were reinstated and actually went on to win the competition beating Liverpool in the final! 

In 2011, further investigations into this affair resulted in Inter also being accused of ‘Sporting fraud’ during the same season but nothing could be proven because ‘all facts were covered by a statute of limitation’!  Do you think that a ‘statute of limitation’ is justified in this case?  Wouldn’t it be far better if clubs knew that no time limits exist regarding punishment for bribery and corruption?

In fact these punishments were so severe that in 2011 several more Italian clubs were found to be involved in a completely different bribery case!  Obviously the punishments did not fit the crime and the rewards for bribing players or match officials in order to gain an advantage far outweigh any points deduction or fine meted out later.

More recently we have had the case where a Spanish Judge has ordered the destruction of blood samples of many Spanish sportsmen including cyclists and apparently even footballers and Tennis players who may have been caught up in a drugs scandal. Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria ruled in Spanish court that the bags of blood, plasma and red blood cells, as well as accompanying evidence, gathered in a 2006 raid of the office of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes could not be released to anti-doping authorities because of Spain’s privacy laws.  ‘Privacy laws?  Who is Judge Julia kidding?

Having heard a lot about this case in April and May of this year it all seems to have dropped off the radar since then.  Even Dick Pound, the former chief of the World Anti-Doping Agency who was in charge of the agency when the Fuentes investigation began seven years ago, said the judge’s decision to keep the evidence from anti-doping authorities “seriously undermines the credibility of sport.” He added that Spain risks becoming a haven for dopers unless it takes a harder line regarding athletes who use drugs to cheat.

“This performance with the Fuentes case is typical of what we’ve seen with Spain,” he said. “For years, we’ve asked them for the evidence, but there was no cooperation at all from them. The courts were almost vigorous in making sure that none of the information saw the light of day.”

So it’s official then; bribery, corruption, drugs, it’s all an accepted part of sport and everyone is doing everything they can to sweep it under the carpet.

One last thought; Usain Bolt is a fabulous athlete and I would never think for one moment that he was using anything other than his immense talent to win his titles.  BUT, if the authorities found out that he had been using drugs do you think they would announce it to the world?  Do you think they would risk besmirching The Olympics, The recent World Athletics Championships and Athletics in general by informing Joe Public that their star performer was not actually legitimate?

If Roger Federer, at the height of his powers, had been found to be a drugs user, would we have been told about it? Or would he have quietly been ordered to cleanse himself and continue normally?  I don’t think for a minute that Federer was a drugs user and this is not about Bolt or Federer – it’s about the ruling bodies of our sport who decide exactly what we should or should not know.

It’s really about time that sport was cleaned up and we should start at the very top.

Another fine mess

When I lived in Luxembourg I used to drive back to the UK quite often.  On one such trip I was driving into London from Kent and found myself, at nine in the morning, in the usual traffic jam along Commercial Road.  As I waited patiently, but rather frustratedly, in line, a large black Mercedes pulled into the bus lane from immediately behind me and proceeded to speed towards London leaving all of us Lemmings behind.  I had noticed the car previously as it was a UK registration but was being driven by a short Japanese man.

As I was driving my Luxembourg registered Audi 80 I decided, what the heck, and followed him.  Bad idea!  About two hundred metres on, at the first intersection two Police people awaited.  They signalled for us to pull over around the corner and as the two of them approached us he got the female and I the male.  My Policeman was maybe around forty-five years old and as he walked towards me I noticed in my wing mirror that when he saw that my car was registered in Luxembourg he mouthed the words ‘Oh no!’ to himself.

He walked up to my driver’s side window, as I was in a left hand drive car and he was on the pavement this was the natural side for him.  I wound the window down and he said to me, in a very slow and exaggerated English voice ‘Do you speak English?’.  In a moment of madness I put on my best Luxembourg French accent and replied ‘Err, a littul’.  He told me that I was driving in the Bus Lane which was not allowed.  I apologised – ‘Sowry, I follow ‘im’ pointing to the driver of the Mercedes who was being grilled by the female Police Officer.

‘Yes he is a naughty boy and we are dealing with him at the moment’ were his exact words!  He asked me whether I had my passport with me and I replied ‘Passpor?  Passpor?  Ah Carte d’identité!  No Sowry but my freundz say many pickpockets in Londone and so I left it at deyr ‘ome.’ 

He told me that I was very wise, spent a few more minutes informing me that driving in the Bus lane was not a good idea, and bid me farewell.  I drove off and managed to do about two hundred metres before I had to pull over to the side of the road almost shivering with, not exactly fear but a feeling that I had been incredibly stupid.

I was in a foreign registered car, so at that time I could not have been prosecuted for my misdemeanour; however, my actions meant that I had gone from that situation to having the possibility of charges of ‘Wasting a Policeman’s time’, ‘Lying to a Police Officer’, and probably numerous other things thrown at me. It could have meant a jail sentence or at least an appearance in court!

It was fun though! J

Embarrassing

When I was working in Luxembourg, my girlfriend at that time, Sarah, and I came back to the UK one weekend.  She mentioned to me that she wanted to go to Marks & Spencer’s to buy a few things and so we went off to the Knightsbridge branch for an afternoon of shopping.  M & S Knightsbridge has a Men’s department, upstairs, and a Ladies department downstairs and so Sarah and I split up to do our required shopping.

Men being rather quicker shoppers than women I soon found a pair of trousers and a couple of shirts, tried them on in the changing rooms and paid for them.  At this point I went downstairs to see how Sarah was getting on.  She was walking around with a few items over her arm and, as we had arranged to be somewhere thirty minutes later, I told her that she should try them on immediately so that we could get away.

We approached an assistant and enquired as to the location of the Ladies changing rooms.  Big mistake!  There were none and Sarah was quite put out by the fact that M & S had facilities for men but not for women.  She mentioned that she worked for the European Parliament and wished to make a formal complaint.  In an effort to ensure that we were not delayed any further I suggested to her that we could go together to the Men’s changing rooms and she could try her clothes on there.

So off we went upstairs and, as luck would have it, there wasn’t anyone in the changing room area.  We found a cubicle and went in.  Sarah tried on various bits and pieces and eventually, in an effort to speed up the process, I asked her to give me the items she definitely didn’t want so that I could return them to the ground floor.  She passed me a selection of female clothing which I draped over my arm as I agreed to meet her in a few minutes downstairs.

I left the cubicle and exited the changing room area to come face to face with the first male in a line of four or five who were now waiting to try on their clothes.  His eyes looked at me, then looked at what was on my arm and then looked at me again with a quizzical expression.  I immediately realised that this didn’t look very good and, with an exaggerated look over my shoulder shouted out ‘I’ll see you downstairs then Sarah!’  He brushed past me with a manner that indicated that he still had doubts about my sexuality!

It gets worse.

The next day Sarah and I were listening to Capital Radio at home when the presenter asked whether any of the listeners had had anything funny happen to them over the weekend.  Being an idiot I immediately called and explained about our adventure in Knightsbridge.  They thought it was worthy of consideration for publication and said that if my story was chosen then they would call again within the hour.

Sure enough, some time later I received a phone call and the caller said ‘Now we have on the line Steve from Ealing.  Steve you are live on air, please tell our listeners what happened to you yesterday’.  I have to admit that for a few seconds my voice would not function and I could not get even one word out but eventually I managed to recount the whole sorry tale to the listeners.  A resident song writer had written a supposedly appropriate short ditty on the subject and eventually the phone call ended.

‘Oh well, that’s that’ I thought, but the next morning when I arrived in the office at least ten of my fellow staff greeted me with cries of ‘Transvestite’, ‘Cross dresser’ and other kind comments.

An embarrassing weekend indeed.

A visit to the baths

During my time in Luxembourg, my girlfriend Sarah wanted to go to Baden-Baden to experience their famous steam baths.  So we set off one Friday afternoon in June and, after a drive of a few hours, arrived at around six.  Having found a decent hotel we walked around the town and had a meal during which I mentioned to Sarah that I really wanted to go to the local Casino which is renowned for its internal décor and multitude of gaming tables.

Sarah told me that she wasn’t interested in playing the tables but would wait in the bar and also informed me that I had thirty minutes to lose my money!  She instructed me to play any numbers with a 3 in them (so 3, 13, 23, 31, 32 etc.)  I determined that I would play the first table on my right as I walked into the Casino gaming area and start at exactly 22.00 hours.  So in we walked, we purchased a drink for Sarah and off I went to win a million!

I arrived at my specified roulette table a minute before ten and the wheel was spinning – the ball stopped in number 13!!  I had missed an opportunity.  However, undeterred, from this point on, at every spin of the roulette wheel I placed the equivalent of a one pound wager on each of the numbers 3, 13, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 and 36. It was a great idea as after twenty minutes I was more than two hundred and fifty pounds in profit!  Not wishing to tempt fate any more I bid farewell to the tables and went out to the bar to give Sarah the news that our weekend was paid for.

Saturday was steam bath day and we went into our chosen thermal spa.  There were different routes for men and women to arrive at the sauna relax room so we agreed to meet there in an hour.  I went into the locker area, changed into shorts and t-shirt, and continued into the next room where a rather large man indicated that I should get onto a wooden bench and proceeded to give me a ten minute pummelling that one might expect to experience during a World Boxing Title fight.

Every muscle in my legs, arms and back was given a real going over – I am sure that it was doing me some good but I must admit that I wasn’t too impressed at the time.  I had expected a nubile sylph-like female to give me tenderness and love, instead of which it felt like I had been crushed by a steam roller.  If I remember correctly I then had to lie on a soft bed for ten minutes, probably to ensure that I didn’t collapse before moving on.

Eventually I arrived in the mixed sauna area where everyone was unclothed!  I took off my shorts and t-shirt and walked into the first of three different saunas.  If you can imagine a glass squash court it was rather similar with benches at varying heights for one to sit one.  The advantage of it being glass was that one could look outside and check whether one’s partner was there.  I slowly moved up to higher bench levels, each time experiencing a greater degree of heat and humidity.

Finally, having decided that I had sauna’d enough, I walked down the stairway to the glass exit door.  As I left I reached back with my hand to pull the door shut behind me – whoops, I hadn’t realised that a young and rather attractive lady had followed me out and my hand gripped, not the door pull but a rather nicely shaped right breast!  I apologised profusely – she seemed to think it was all rather comical especially as I had turned crimson red in my embarrassment (and at this point I can confirm that the red wave covers ALL the body).

Normality soon returned and I met Sarah, recounted most of my experiences, and we left to continue our weekend in Baden-Baden.  A truly memorable city!

The Casino

Casino in Baden-Baden