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One of the many problems with the public sector is that every single trivial action is subject to Byzantine sets of rules and procedures. For instance, to order a new part for the printer, I was required to fill out a number of complicated forms, which were then cross checked by no less than eight separate members of staff. Even answering the ( Read more... )

The German Race have been the subject of contempt amongst the Clarke family since they, rather unsportingly, decided to bomb my great aunt Bertha whilst she was visiting friends in Bristol during the blitz. However, last night as I sat through ‘The Downfall’, a film that chronicles the last days of Hitler, I felt a strange affinity with the ill- ( Read more... )

Things really haven’t moved on since Victorian times, I mused as I twisted my hand inside the photocopier, as if I were a vet struggling with a cow's rectum. In the mills and factories of the industrial revolution, small children were often forced to place their limbs inside dangerous machinery in a bit to stop it from clogging. Now, in these ( Read more... )

My boss sauntered over to my desk as I was reading the BBC news online page for about the 20th time that morning. ‘We are just having a bit of an office reshuffle, would you mind moving back over to Amanda’s desk’ she said. I always seem to get moved on from desk to desk in this fashion as if I’m a particularly troublesome family of Travellers. I’ ( Read more... )

As I wandered happily through the Meadows, I found myself temporarily filled with Joi d’ Vive. A gentle breeze rustled through the trees and the air was filled with the scent of summer. True, on the odd patch of pavement, this consisted mainly of the smell of petrified dog turd, but in the main, my nostrils were filled with the odour of cut grass, ( Read more... )

As I unenthusiastically turned the pages of budget number 14560039, I found myself wondering whether I was meant for greater things than inspecting invoices for biros. This is the nature of modern life. Unsatisfied with our dull and uninteresting existence, we construct more exciting destinies for ourselves. 16th century French peasants had few ( Read more... )

For those of you (well, all two of you) who are wondering why I haven’t updated lately, I feel I should offer an explanation. Since I am now an employee of Rottingham-on-Trent City Council I now have an innumerate number of topics to go on childish rants about. Unfortunately I could also get sacked were my employers to find out I keep a blog, its ( Read more... )

I winced as the shrill sound of the office phone disturbed my peaceful daydreaming. As I lifted the receiver I cursed the long decayed corpse of Alexander Graham Bell. My most famous ancestor, Robert Whitehead, was largely responsible for inventing the torpedo, a weapon the Germans later copied, dubbed the blackhead, and used to sink millions of ( Read more... )

I don’t know Ali Mbomba, but I detest the blighter. At the time of his birth in the war torn jungles of Angola, it was by no means evident that our paths would cross. Then he made the decision to leave, and somehow made his way across the dark continent, sailed the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean sea and arrived on the shores of Britain. At ( Read more... )