Gone Fishing

OK aside from the car and the iPhone and the smoking.... What else has been happening?

Well I'm sure I mentioned before that, despite not being nearly old enough, we have a caravan that we like to spend our weekends at.

I had booked the Friday and Monday off (one of the reasons I was so determined that I wanted a hire car)so we headed down to the van on Thursday night.

The weather was to be great so I suggested to our neighbours that we go fishing.

Now fishing has been quite a fraught affair for us in the past. We do own a small fishing boat that we share with family however we are hopeless at launching it. I once nearly sunk a car in soft sand and had to be towed out. My step dad is competent at launching the boat but doesn't really do fishing and wants to stay out all day. All we want is to take some beers. Go out on the water. Drop a few lines (we're not fussy if we only catch mackerel whilst all the serious fishers seek Pollock cod and tope and frown on mackerel). We want to have a laugh and a chat for an hour or so then come back in when we've drank all the beers and it's time for a pee.


This time that's exactly how it worked out. We headed out on an afternoon tide on a calm sea in our neighbours boat. He and his brother are kind of serious about the whole business but, they wanted big fish and we said we wanted mackerel. Here's the deal. They stopped for a while till we caught ten or so mackerel then they used three or four for bait so they could chase dog fish. Neither they nor my wife really went for the lager (my wife didn't want to need a pee on a boat full of guys) so I drank it. When I eventually needed a pee I just went to the side of the boat that didn't point into the wind. Given the stresses of the day before with the garage it was the perfect unwind.

More at the weekend

T

Quick update

So I have a car that works although my wife has been out in it all day so I'll have to wait till later for a full report.

Consumer direct also got back to me with a slightly confusing email with regard to my rights regarding the fault on the wheel. It seems that the dealer/manufacturer are responsible to do only what they state in their published warranty (I'll need to check the book to see what it says but I hold out little hope). It turns out however that I could pursue the finance company. See below:

Based on the information supplied within your e mail I would advise that if you were to pursue the trader and the manufacturer they are offering redress as per the terms of the warranty , you could ask for a copy of these . An alternative option would be to pursue your statutory rights .

Where goods are bought under a Hire Purchase agreement, the contract is governed by the Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973. Your rights are against the credit provider rather than the trader who supplied the goods. The Act states that all goods supplied by a trader to a consumer must be of a satisfactory quality, fit for purpose made known and as described. If they are not, you may have rights to claim ‘damages’ from the finance company i.e. the cost of having the faults repaired, or for the finance company to arrange repairs and cover the cost.

I would advise you contact the finance company , initially by phone , but follow with a written request . Letters are best sent by recorded delivery , state your request and a fixed time fro reply , 14 days . Keep a copy for your records. Template letters are available on the Consumer Direct website as a guide.

Not sure what I'll do next. What I wanted was to go to the manufacturer and have them demand that the dealer made good. Basically I wanted to watch the dealer squirm. The actual damage was never the issue. I'll have a think over the weekend but may look for another way to get at the dealer. I want this dealer to feel my pain. I want them to resent selling me a car as much as I resent buying it. But enough of that.

I love my car, I hate mechanics and dealers.
I love my iPhone, I hate apple
I loved cigarettes, I hated coughing

Guess I just want everything all my own way. Apple have upgraded their phone software to ios 4. I can't upgrade yet because nobody has got a jailbreak that I can use yet although I do believe it's close. It has been jail broke but the fix won't work in my circumstances. Interestingly though I found that Stephen Fry (British Comedian, TV presenter, genius etc) also follows the jail breaking blogs for iPhone.

Just (not) Enough Essential Parts

Hi folks

Since my last post a whole lot has happened. On reflection it's all pretty good but it started in a pretty bad way and may see a war that started with an individual escalate to war against a car dealership and even a worldwide car brand.

I'm not a serial complainer, in fact I'm much more likely to just have a rant and then let it rest. So when someone irks me significantly to make me take the effort to complain and then take it further then you know that customer service has gone wrong somewhere along the line.

Years working as a manager within a number of well known supermarkets has effectively removed from me the ability to complain. I have dealt with, and resolved to their satisfaction, so many unjust and ill informed complaints in my time that I frankly can't stand to have anyone, even a complete stranger, think of me in the same way as all the other moaning, grasping, compensation junkies who exist in order to see how far they can push to get something for nothing. Yet a world wide car manufacturer has offered me such piss poor customer service at every level that I now find myself wanting to publicly pursue them and force them to re-examine their policies.

Three years ago I bought a car. I made the decision to buy a brand new car in the foolish assumption that I would get a few years trouble free motoring from it before things started to go wrong. I stretched myself to buy a car that was, possibly,.... no probably, beyond my price bracket but just about justifiable given the mileage and conditions that I travel. A heavy smoker for two of the three years that I owned the car and yet it never smelled of smoke. Not once. Why? Because for almost all of that time I didn't smoke in the car. It was that important to me. The only times I did smoke in the car was because my morning commute was taking more than an hour for a couple of months and even then I had all the windows down so there was no smell.

Everyone who has ever sat in my car has been impressed but only those who have driven it appreciate why I'm so knocked out by it. It's no sports car, a house brick is more aerodynamic, yet it has an acceleration and road holding that's just unrivalled in its market (think the lower end of Mercedes, Audi, Saab, BMW to the mid range of Volkswagen or Citroen). As a new model in a now unpopular 4x4 market it also still manages to be pretty unique on the road and draws a lot of interest.

So when people ask what it's like to own will I say..Comfortable, fast, practical, tough both on and off road? A good tow car without the sacrifice of looking like some dull people carrier? Nope. I'll be saying don't touch this car. If someone offers you one view them with suspicion.

The makers of my car were under different ownership when the car was taken from concept to reality. The people who had the vision to create this fantastic, multi award winning car sold out their share shortly after and the company then proceeded to become one of the largest corporate failures in world history as the banking crisis hit.

Like any concept car issues began to arise when owners took their cars through the real day to day drudgery of car life. Winters with salty roads, towing boats and caravans, non stop city driving, snow driving etc. Don't get me wrong..the car didn't fall apart. Far from it. It performed well but it also became obvious that some tweaks would improve it. The original interior was light and eye catching but easily marked and damaged. After thousands of miles of day to day use the cab got a bit rattly. There was something wrong with the design of the alloy wheels causing them to become pitted and oxidise through time. This is not an unusual set of problems when launching a completely new vehicle. Later models had some revisions (a whole new interior) to deal with some of these problems. But (I assume as a result of its fight to stay in business) evidence started to appear that corners may be being cut.

My car was three years old on Sunday. It still looks and performs fantastically well. During its three years I've used the dealer for servicing, had three wheels (we'll discuss the forth in a minute) replaced because of oxidisation. I also had to leave it in one whole weekend till the engine computer reset and allowed them to fix the permanently locked drivers door. This might not sound a lot but remember this car is brand new and under 40,0000 miles. Followers of this blog will perhaps remember that I then fell out with the dealer because they were ripping me off over the price of breaks. Basically they could supply them to other garages for nearly half the price that they wanted me to pay them to fit them. To be clear the prices from the other garages included ordering the breaks from my dealer and fitting them but cost half what the dealer wanted. As a result I used a private garage to fit the breaks and disks as it eventually turned out.

Here in the UK all cars have to undergo what is known as an MOT Test(Ministry of Transport Test) at three years old and every year thereafter. The test checks the cars roadworthiness, safety and carbon emissions. Fail this and you cant drive the car. The police can use there in car PC to ensure you have the test and, if you don't, then you invalidate your insurance and will come close to loosing your license.

A lot of new car owners in the UK feel that this test is just a government money making scheme as cars between three and five years of age rarely need anything more than a new wiper blade or a bulb. I chose not to use the dealer to carry out this test as I also needed a service and most people don't trust the dealer to highlight problems when the car is close to the end of its warranty. Imagine my surprise then when told that my car could not be legally put back on the road. The ball joint on the drivers side suspension arm was completely worn out. Has anyone ever heard of anyone owning any car and driving it long enough and hard enough to wear out the suspension???? The car in question is 4x4 and has never been off road.

When I phoned the dealer they tried to wriggle. Rather than offer an instant apology and look to see how they could resolve the issue they immediately went on the defensive. A car that was not roadworthy at three years of age might not be an issue for them. "Bring it over and we'll have a look but we're not committing to fixing anything until we've been underneath". When I demanded that I would need a hire car.."we don't offer a hire cars, that's not part of the service unless you've paid for it as an option". To make matters worse I had searched forums online and now discovered that this appeared to be quite a common fault with this type of car. Many on the forum opined that it was only a matter of time before a recall was ordered. Others pointed out that the repair involves replacing one inferior part with another equally inferior part from the same manufacturer.

To be fair to the dealer they did eventually concede to my demands. The repair just sneaked in under warranty as the car had exceeded 36,000 miles but was days short of three years old. I still can't quite figure out how but I did get a hire car. I think it's because when I phoned for a progress update on the day I got someone who was actually stupid enough to admit that the car hadn't even been inspected. When I exploded I heard someone in the background instruct the poor service agent to tell me to expect a call from the manufacturers helpline to arrange a hire car. The part I needed was on back order and it took one day short of a week to get and fit. Had it not squeaked in under warranty it would have cost in excess of £300. I got the car back tonight and it seems fine although it won't get a proper test till tomorrow. So I'm happy now, right? Wrong wrong wrong.

First up I am ridiculously angry at how surprised they seemed at my anger that a car that's three years old with 36000 miles should fail an MOT. That is just not acceptable. I refuse to believe that I am being unreasonable in that expectation. Let me be quick to point out that there is absolutely no suggestion that this fault had anything to do with driving style.

Second, in my anger at putting the car into the garage I also asked them to look at the oxidisation causing marks on my drivers wheel (the only wheel not already replaced(see above)). The service manager was actually prepared to sign a document to say that the oxidisation is a fault with the wheel but, I should pay half the repair because there is also kerbing on that wheel. Now in my book there either is or isn't a fault. If the manufacturer admit that there is a fault then you get a replacement. If the manufacturer denies the fault then you have all sorts of problems. But I've never come across a manufacturer that admits to a fault but wont repair it because of other, unconnected, damage.

I genuinely thought the dealer was at it so phoned the manufacturer. No question...they'll make good on half the repair cost. The idiot I spoke to even tried to justify his stance by mis-quoting the policies of one of the best retailers in this country, Marks and Spencer (M&S). His example was that, if I had purchased a shirt from M&S and the buttons were loose because of a fault but I had also ripped the sleeve would I expect M&S to replace the shirt? He was surprised when I indicated emphatically that I absolutely know that M&S would change the shirt. I know this to be true because, as a one time manager with Salisbury's, who aspire to match if not improve upon M&S standards, I know that faulty goods will be replaced regardless of other circumstances. I have been the manager that replaced a bottle of wine that was all but empty because the dregs in the bottom tasted corked. I have replaced a chicken that ruined a dinner party even though the customer had destroyed the chicken and had no evidence. Here in the UK all goods must be 'Fit for purpose'. The word 'Fault' indicates that this is not the case.

To be honest I had held off on the wheel because it's a pain in the arse having the car off the road and the kerb damage is actually worse than the oxidisation. If they hadn't pissed me off I'd probably have left it. Now I'm after a full repair and have approached consumer direct for legal advice. I drive a fantastic car which has the potential to serve as a template to other manufacturers in creating a fantastic vehicle with good emissions, a good engine and a good price point. Should you buy one? No. Because it's made by a company who don't value customers and distributed by dealers who have no faith in the company that they deal for. Makes you wonder how they ever went bust.

How will it all end up?????

Stay hooked

What's in a name?

Just when you wonder if you're the only one left reading the site, you log in, and find that someone new has decided to add this site to their follow list.

Hi p_cj and welcome to the world of quitting smoking and mobile phones and whatever else comes up. P_cj.....It's an unusual name. I'm going to take a leap here and say it's possibly a shortened version of something and not even a real name. Get me...Like the priest called me T when he christened me and all my mail is addressed to Mr Quittin. Nope my name came out of an unhappy accident when setting up my blogger account and it just stuck. Poet!!! Sure there's a story to that name? Zoe? I think that actually might be Zoe's name you know. Thing is, I can't help it, I like to wonder about these things. Anyhow welcome to the site P (if I may be so informal as to abbreviate your abbreviation).

Another idea I had for finding out about folk was to ask what World cup team they supported. Then It occurred to me that, for many, that just wouldn't work. I'm supporting Spain. I live in the UK but, as anyone will tell you, those of us from the UK that don't live in England don't support England (actually I would quite like to see them do well but, don't say I said so). Poet is in Canada. Canada doesn't have a team and the average Canadian wouldn't, I don't think, support USA.



Or I can just look at my map from google analytics. The green areas represent the continents where my visitors have come from in the last month. The darker the green the more frequent the visits. Problem is that it highlights a whole continent when someone visits. I had one visit from someone in Moscow last month however, flatteringly, the map makes it look like I've cracked the market for the whole of Russia. I like that map. It is a bit misleading though. The darkest shade of green is 107 visitors from the UK. But when it comes to the lighter shades it gets harder to distinguish. Ireland sent 14 visitors while Russia sent 1 yet they look pretty evenly matched on the Map.

It also occurs to me that I'm 128 days off the smoking. What I can tell you at this stage is how it feels. I've had a bit of a summer cold this week which included a chesty cough. God I do not miss the good old days when I coughed like that every morning. I'm scared to say this in case I jinx it but...it's two weeks since I had a proper quitzit. I so hope I've beet those wee bastards. I think the clear weather might be helping my skin. My quiet hope is that once they are gone they won't come back.

It is no longer tough not to smoke. It doesn't gnaw away at my every waking thought. It does still surprise me though that I do miss it. Why? If I could just figure out why I miss it I could finally put to rest any shadow of the smoker I was. I don't miss the cough. I don't actually miss the taste anymore although I did for a long time. I don't miss the smell. (It's not that I ever loved the smell but, for a long time after I quit, the smell of smoke triggered a reaction and made me want to smoke. So many non smokers get the opposite but I was actually drawn to the smell. I'm not offended by it now but it doesn't have any effect on me). Nope it must be the drug itself. There's a certain state of mind, a certain feeling that's almost but not quite there anymore.

Imagine you could only ever have decaffeinated coffee or alcohol free lager . The taste and smell are available but the 'sensation' is gone. Is that what it is? Is that why people smoke? I think the thing is though...When it's gone it's gone. I actually don't think that having a cigarette now would bring it back.

For those of you trying at this moment to quit. Take all the help you can get and quit. The advantages far out weigh the disadvantages. But there will be some of you out there like me who will have to accept that, Thirty years of self harm, doesn't just go away over night.

Until next time.....

T

First bites at the apple.

So what's on my iPhone and why is it any better than any other phone?

Unlike most phones you have to do a bit of prep before your iPhone arrives. Why? Well it doesn't work without itunes. It's that simple. No iTunes no iPhone. As a windows user I had never had any need for iTunes. I therefor installed the minimum that I could and said 'no' to any prompts that asked if I wanted it to be a default player etc. I then set up an iStore account. I had no plans to purchase anything but never the less had to set up an account and supply bank details. iTunes then created a complete copy of all my music files (lucky I wasn't short of memory because it didn't ask, or warn me that this would happen). It wanted to copy all the pictures from my PC as well. And all the movies. I stopped it and limited what files it could access. Less attention to detail here could have caused all sorts of PC conflicts and problems.

The next thing I wanted to do before the phone arrived was sort out some satnav software. My last two phones had this and I strongly recommend it. Now, previously, I had acquired this software without paying. With Iphone I'd heard this might not work. A quick Internet search however explained to me that, I could have the software but, I would have to 'jailbreak' my phone first. Further searches told me that jail breaking would invalidate the warranty and that the phone would crash constantly. That and the fact that every software upgrade would undo the jailbreak. Hardly worthwhile then?

My new phone was jail broken within 12 hours of arrival. By 13 hours it had satnav and it worked. By 24 hours all that worked was the satnav and I'd lost my phone provider, wifi, etc. Maybe jail breaking didn't work. Restored the phone to default. Tried again. Hey presto! Almost two months now and no issues. Satnav works a treat.

Since my previous phones did SatNav I'm not going to rave about that although the rotating screen and large display are fantastic. Also my download is a later version than I had previously.

Apps:


Well being a true Scot I went for a look at some free stuff first. Two of my most used apps came from this initial start. Metro.co.uk a daily free British newspaper and STV news, a Scottish Television news application. Metro can also do a download if you're struggling for Internet. STV has all the headlines and provided you get 3g coverage can show bulletins at the same time.

My next fave is actually a website so you need to favorite it with safari. iphone.tvcatchup.com For users in the UK this should be essential. Basically all the digital free view channels live. What's more it actually manages to stream live TV with almost no Internet signal. The only time it's let me down so far has been the world cup. Not sure if it's the broadband signal or if the site gets over subscribed but otherwise it's excellent.

Then comes Stanza. An e-book reader with loads of free books. As a gadget lover I've always wondered if the Sony or amazon book readers were anything more than a gimmick. When I saw that this was free I thought I'd try it to see how it worked. Bloody hell! The sepia background, font, font size and spacing actually make it, not only possible but, pleasant to read on the small screen. Within the software there are links to download books direct to the phone or you can download them to your PC and use something like Box net to load them to your iPhone.

Box.net This I discovered because of Stanza above but it's important in it's own right. It's one of the ever popular 'cloud' services that let you save files from your PC to a web space, and download them to your phone or another PC from that space. Added to the mix it can read word, excel and pdf files on your iPhone.

AppBox Pro. Dubiously enough the only application I have paid for yet you can get it free. I discovered that some of the so called free apps come with loads of advertising so decided that 50 pence was a worthwhile investment to avoid the ads. This is just a collection of useful gizmo's that use the iPhone interface. Some like the day calculator, and unit converter are just a spreadsheet function created for you, others use updates when your phone is in wifi to get up to date info such as currencies. It's got a ruler, a spirit level, a torch (turns your screen bright white), it even has translation software. Available free or for the 50p premium without ads.

Yell.com. Just the yellow pages website but laid out in a way that suits the iPhone. Combine this with Google Earth/google maps and you've got a pretty powerful tool that will find your GPS location, find businesses near that location and even phone any of the numbers it finds with one touch rather than having to copy them down. It's actually like the adverts for the Iphone promise.

Wordweb and wikipanion provide an on/offline dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia and, importantly for me, use UK spelling.

The trainline.com is another online service that's been optimized to work well with iPhone. When you switch it on it can use your GPS location to find the nearest train station or you can manually enter details of the journey that you want to make.

I'm also using something called Fliq Notes. A nice straightforward software for keeping and categorising notes.

Nightstand is an alarm clock function which you probably don't need but which uses the HTC flip clock that my last phone had. It's free so why not.

Cinema Times (UK). The wife loves this and it works very well. For some reason they also do cinema times England, Wales, Scotland but just download the UK version. Set your fave cinema and it will get the latest listings from the net. Cool

I also have stopwatch and that mad program that can name any song, Shazam, as well as a version of spider solitaire. With the exception of the satnav and the 50p I paid for the premium version of AppBox all of the above were free.

In addition to this I have over 500 music files and forty or so photos. That and some paid for apps that I wont mention because I haven't paid for them. Try apptrakr.org if you want to know more.

A lot of these apps work using the Internet and/or the GPS. It's fair to say though that they download when the Internet is available but will still work when it isn't. The dictionary, book reader, newspaper etc can all work perfectly without a connection.

My old HTC touch could have done almost all of the above. It just didn't. The programs weren't in your face or as easy to access so you didn't find them. I believe that android is working to reverse this trend but, until then, it's an apple a day for me.

Getting Mobile

OK, We're about three or four weeks in now and I've had a good chance to thoroughly evaluate the iPhone.It will probably take a few articles to get all my ideas down but, to start with, lets look at how I came to own an IPhone.

I could have switched to the IPhone two years ago but didn't want to. Why? Well I just don't like Apple to be honest. The world seems to work perfectly well without Apple. Windows PCs do everything that you need a PC to do whilst apple PCs are bit funny about doing anything unless you want to do it the way Apple prescribe. For a while it was almost trendy to slag off windows but I stuck by them. Bill Gates et al were the ones who realised that computers needed to be simplified or they'd never catch on.


At school, 1 million years BC, or so it seems now, I actually remember that we were allowed to pick computing as an extra subject. (At this time you weren't allowed a calculator in maths.) This extra subject was something that you weren't sitting a certificate in but that gave you a break from your studies and made you a more rounded person. My mum had purchased a Sinclair ZX81 and I was interested in finding out how to get it to play space invaders. For three one hour classes at school I relentlessly plugged code in to a BBC micro. I had no real understanding of the code but, words can't describe, how rewarding it was at the end of three weeks to hit the enter key and have a circle appear on screen. My code had plotted that circle. It's easy to see why, at that point, the computer hadn't comfortably invaded the home.

During the late 80s and early 90s my job was as a retail manager. The PC was just about to change this world forever. It started with a barcode scanner and then, before you could blink, we had EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale). The till was recording what was in stock, what had been sold and what needed ordered. Managers with up to thirty years experience walked away from perfectly good jobs to join company's that hadn't yet invested in EPOS. They were payed to manage shops not as bloody scientists.

It was late into the decade (1998) before I was persuaded to part with over £1000 on a PC with the Just released windows 95 and office 97 (I think). A heavenly three gb memory and a massively limited and expensive subscription to dial up Internet. I was way ahead of most who, liked the idea, but had far more important ways to waste their money. 12 years later I can't think of anyone who doesn't own a PC or, at very least, a mobile that would put that first PC to shame.

For me I entered the mobile world quite late. Despite spearheading computers I was a bit reluctant about the whole mobile phone thing. I loved the gadget end of things but I didn't want people to be able to get hold of me whenever they wanted. (I'm still a bit like that now). I love text and am amazed with what phones can do but I'm not in love with being available.


The first phone came around 2000 and was an Erickson. Not a Sony Erickson but an Erickson. They hadn't got together yet. This mobile consisted mostly of a battery and could phone and text. The only really advanced thing was that it allowed you to write your own ring tone. I believe I'm the only one that ever did. (Jean Michelle Jarres' oxygen never sounded so good). The next few phones only came about because the phone companies were giving away great mobiles to get you to switch networks. The phones themselves just got smaller and smarter. Flip phones, slide phones etc.


Then it happened. When everyone else in the world went for the small and slim Motorola razor I went for the Sony Erickson smart phone of the time. Cant remember the exact model but this bad boy was the first of the true smart phones. Hewlett Packard were doing something pretty impressive with their PDA and windows and some new upstart, blackberry, were pushing emails but the Sony, using the symbian operating system, had advantages over them all. About the size of a cigarette packet it had a stylus to allow you to write texts. It had a working pocket version of MS Office (my iPhone still doesn't do this well). Using blue tooth, a GPS receiver and a dodgy version of tom tom I was the first person I knew to have satnav on my phone although Nokias were just about to do that bit better.

The funny thing was that people liked my phone but didn't love it. Even Sony Erickson seemed to spend more of their R&D dollars on creating a good MP3 player and camera phone than on exploring the true smart phone market. Most liked my phone but thought it was too big. When Nokia pulled out the N95 it seemed like history for my phone. Talking of good MP3 players...Apple were bringing out a phone.


When I was due for a new handset I was quite excited. Symbian was, and is, good but I'd found a handset with Windows. Windows had to be the way to go. Truly sync with your pc. Again a stylus but this time the writing recognition had improved to a point where you really could almost write natively. Some folk had gone for the newly released IPhone but what did they know. My HTC didn't even need a separate GPS receiver because this one was built in. I could surf the Internet and connect to wifi automatically I could tell you the weather or access google maps. The only downside was that my package didn't give me free Internet. We're only going back three years but most mobiles charged a ridiculous amount for the Internet and access was painfully slow. The HTC also had pocket office and could hold my MP3 library so why did I go for the iPhone?.....

Stay hooked to find out.

T

Justice shuffles along

Today Her Royal Highness the queen required that I attend the high court to carry out my civic duty as a juror. None of your petty crimes at the sheriff court for me. Nope I've been asked to be a juror twice now and on both occasions it's the high court.

Those not from the UK may be puzzled. Scotland has district courts, sheriff courts and the high court. A district or Justice of the peace court will deal with anti-social behaviour and small time crime (shop lifting, drunk and disorderly, etc). The Sheriff Court deals with most civil and criminal cases and covers a wide range. Cases that can't be resolved by a sheriff court are pushed to the high court on appeal. The high court deal with serious crime. If it's murder, rape or serious drug offences they won't even bother with the Sheriff court they'll go directly to the high. Picture painted?

Now as you would imagine such serious criminals require serious surroundings and the high court that I attended wouldn't have been a let down. Not sure if it's Georgian or Victorian but we are talking about proper oak panelling and brass rails, plaster mouldings of impressive lions and mythical creatures, huge pillared arches and 30-40 foot high ceilings. Yep if your about to see freedom for one last time then the high court is an impressive last view.

So anyway I thought a little blog about the days proceedings might paint a picture for those not from the UK and give those within the UK some idea what to expect.

Not sure if it had anything to do with the guy in Cumbria last week who decided to start shooting Innocent bystanders for no reason but the 'threat level' in the courts was medium or intermediate or something along those lines. That meant that the court had security staff on the doors and walk through metal detectors set up. (Americans would probably be surprised to find out that metal detectors in public buildings still aren't standard in the UK). Caught unawares I hastily started emptying the, not insubstantial, contents of my jacket into the tray being thrust toward me. Keys, phone, headache pills, headphones, wallet, bank cards and loose change all live in a mans pockets and that's before you even think about the belt etc. Imagine how safe and comforted I felt when the security guy beckoned me through the scanner before I'd even finished emptying my pockets. I tried to object but he ushered me through. The machine beeped. I prepared for the search. Instead he just gave me my stuff and told me to carry on. What was the point?

I was then shown to the canteen where, I'd been warned, Jurors mingled with witnesses and the families and friends of those on trial. Today however there appeared to be only fellow jurors. There was one of the guys I'd have laid bets on as being 'the accused' but it turns out he was a fellow juror. Good to know I'm impartial and way beyond stereotyping though. Here we waited to be called at 9.30 when it was all due to start. At 9.30 we continued to wait until 9.45.

At 9.45 a woman came and asked aloud if jurors would follow her. This was the point that confirmed to me that everyone in the canteen was a juror. I resisted the urge to tell the dodgy looking guy that looked like the accused that it was jurors only. He'd figure it out.

We were led through a maze of corridors past the front door (which is not used despite being the best entrance for folk to find) to a courtroom. My citation (invite to attend) said court three. This court had a name as well as a number but neither of them began or ended with three. In fact the number wasn't even divisable by three. I noticed a couple of others checking their slips (with the huge number three in bold on the top left) and deciding to say nothing so I decided it must be OK. Anyway this was the impressive room I described at the start and I wanted a look.

The big dodgy guy was now standing next to me muttering under his breath about how he could do without this sh*t today. When I say under his breath it was audible to most of the folk around me who were studiously trying not to look his (or by association my)way.

Where I'm from a high court jury is made up of fifteen folk rather than the standard twelve. The logic? An odd number must give you a decision one way or the other. Quite logical I think although it would probably work just as well with eleven or thirteen members. In order to get fifteen members there are somewhere between thirty and fifty folk called to attend. The process is then to pick fifteen from a hat (or a goldfish bowl or cookie jar in this case), read the details of the case to them, allow them to consider whether or not they are able to act as juror in the case, allow the prosecution to object to any of them and then, provided the fifteen are OK, the others can go home. Given that it's 9.45 and all of us are in court how long do you think that process takes?

For five to ten minutes nothing happened. There were three people, two in gowns, in the court bit and fifty of us in the public gallery. The three folk however were as if completely oblivious to us. Maybe that's what they mean by 'Justice is blind'. They just completely refused to acknowledge our presence. They also seemed increibly busy doing nothing as their monitors were switched off and there was nobody about.

Then a small accountant like gentleman (imagine an affable and sprightly version of scrooge)swept in from the a door at the left behind the judges area. He moved quickly down to swig from a waiting coffee cup in front of the judges bench before, almost without pause, moving to the rear of the court where we were sat. Before anyone could throw anything at him or rugby tackle him to the ground he was right in front of us in the gallery with a practised, comforting,smile and fixed gaze. After a pause he introduced himself by surname only.

It seems odd to be introduced to someone with no prefix or position. 'Good Morning I'm Smith'. Think about it...Mr Smith, fine, John Smith, fine, Smith the Clerk, maybe but, Smith? (His name wasn't Smith by the way, that's just an example).

Smith was the clerk of court and possibly one of the best spoken practitioners of the English Language I have ever come across. Without the affectations of an actor he simply had pronunciation that I, as a trainer, would kill for. Smith spent at least twenty minutes explaining to us what would happen in court. Smith also got to tantalise us with an overview of what the case would involve. Smith then left us and went through a door that he left slightly ajar allowing us to see him fold pieces of paper into the cookie jar. Smith had the next three or four days of our lives in his hands.

What then passed was a very long period of awkward silence (apart from the guy beside me muttering about what a b*st*rd it was that he had to do this. I'm sure he should have been the accused). During the awkward silence the three gowned figures seemed to be very busy doing nothing. One stapled pieces of paper and brought them to lay in a pile on a lectern near us. He then went up to the judges bit and sat for a few minutes as if trying it for size and made sure the mike was pointing the right way. (This seemed to be achieved by twisting it away from the perfectly good direction it was pointing and then twisting it back to exactly the position it started from). He then came back down to the lectern and moved the papers to a desk. He then left the room for about five minutes before returning to pick the papers up and move them back to the lectern. Then he came back and moved them back to his desk again. Another lady appeared to be writing furiously and never turned round in the whole time I was there. Didn't they know there would be a case today? Didn't they know what that case was? Couldn't they have already had names drawn from the names that signed in that morning? Don't the three gowned ones that were there have an office out of sight where they don't have to pretend to be busy? Does Smith even have a first name?

At 10.50 suddenly everyone turned up. The judge, the accused, the police etc. The fifteen jurors were then called by name and sat one by one at the jury bench. The judge then called a recess for a break (for the jury only, those not chosen were asked to stay put). That was as exciting as it got.

Smith swept back across to explain to us that we would be required for another ten minutes or so. Those chosen as Jurors were being given the chance to state any reason they may have for not being able to serve, choose there lunch and go to toilet before things could resume. That 'ten minutes' lasted thirty by my watch before the jury returned. Fortunately at that point those of us not chosen to serve were released. It was just after 11.30.

What a criminal waste of peoples time. There needs to be a jury and therefor jury selection but it does not need to last all morning. In fact it should be over and done by ten o-clock at the latest so people can get back to what they are doing if not chosen. For me it was just boring but a break from work. For others however who were self employed or had parenting duties it seemed a bit much. The guy beside me probably still had crimes to commit and a court to attend as 'the accused'.

As for the case.... Given the number of charges read out and the nature of them....it would take something pretty unexpected to come up for the guy to be innocent I'm afraid. Wonder if he was as impressed by the architecture as I was?

Speak soon

T

Non Smoking

First things first. Thanks to John for the comment on last weeks post. Everyone has been pretty quiet for the last few weeks so it's much appreciated when someone takes the time to leave a note. That said.... John may be a wee bit keener on Chantix/Champix than is necessary unless of course you work for the company.

My non smoking came up as a subject with my colleagues this week. Why did you give up? Do you feel the difference?, Do you miss it? etc. I'm afraid that, as non smoking goes, I just don't fit the mold that everyone wants me to fit. Maybe I somehow didn't smoke properly because:

-I don't feel massively healthier despite cutting out a forty plus a day habit
-I have no sudden urge to exercise
-Food always tasted this good
-I don't hate smokers

Things that have changed since I stopped are:

-The cough went almost instantly. Good riddance
-If needed I can get up and go. Prefer not to but I actually can as opposed to needing to smoke first.
-Already there have been times when I'm happy I don't have to go outside. There have also been times when I wish I could go out.

So why did I quit? Health. People knew me by my cough. At the caravan I was that guy that smoked out the door. At work I was the smoker that you either compared yourself to, i.e. I'm not as bad as him, or the smoker you used as an example.

If someone came up with a healthy cig I'd smoke it tomorrow. Maybe that's where the tobacco company's went wrong. They tried to defend what they had instead of investigating an alternative. Anyway it's all good now. I don't smoke which is a pretty incredible statement if you know me. I was the Marlboro man. For some I made smoking ok, whilst for others I was an excuse. Giving up has confused a lot of smokers and non smokers alike. For me....Giving up has just made me spotty.

So what about the other guys? Zoe, Poet Kath.... what's happened to those blogs?

Stay hooked...

t