Vicola's blog

I've moved again!

I've moved myself again!

Now I'm at http://vicola.wordpress.com

Hope to see you there xxxx

Why Naomi Campbell is a twat

Botox much

Is it me, or does the very important issue of blood diamonds and mass slaughter in Africa appear to have been somewhat overshadowed by the 5ft ten streak of walking ego that is Naomi Campbell? In most war crimes trials, the focus is on the person being accused and what they have done but in her usual style, Ms Campbell has managed to make it all about her. And some of what she’s saying is veers over the border from ‘silly’ to ‘absolute batshit madness’.

First there was getting her there in the first place. Now I’m sure that sitting about in a courtroom isn’t everyone’s idea of a fun afternoon out, all that due process and legalese must be as dull as ditchwater. But this guy is on trial for horrific war crimes so perhaps announcing to the court, in the tones of a teenager informed she has to spend the afternoon at Great- Auntie Grace’s 80^th birthday party, “I didn’t really want to be here, obviously I just want to get on with my life, this is a major inconvenience to me”. Is that…is it….yes it is. That sound you can hear ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of the world’s tiniest violin playing for Naomi, a lament for the poor supermodel who had to rearrange her decleor facial just because some stupid people got themselves killed and mutilated. Who do they think they are? Do they not realise that Ms Campbell has a busy schedule? She has to…erm…well…do, like, loads of much more important things. I just can’t really think of any off-hand. Taking a look at her face though, I’d say the botox should hold up until she can get home. Still, nice to see she’s made the effort and put on her nicest, high necked, ivory “I didn’t knowingly receive dodgy gifts off a blood soaked nutjob’ dress. And not wanting to be there is NOT an excuse for turning up to court late. If it were, no court would ever run to schedule because very few people in there WANT to be there. Have a bit of respect you stupid mare this trial isn’t being run for your convenience.

Then there was her arrival. Everyone knew she was going to be giving evidence, everyone knew that the trial was being televised. So can anyone tell me WHY she insisted on getting a court order banning photographs being taken outside or inside the court house? Why? Her evidence was going to be broadcast to the world so what the hell difference does it make if someone gets a snap of her walking in? She even tried to get an order banning pictures being taken of her as she travelled across Holland on the way to trial and back but the judge had evidently decided enough was enough and announced that her writ didn’t stretch that far. Showing what seems to have been the first grain of good sense in this whole circus performance. The only reason I can think of for insistence on the photo ban is that her ego has finally managed to take over her entire cranium, cutting off the oxygen to the few brain cells she was graced with at birth and leaving her with no powers of reasoning at all. It’s a theory that would also explain why she’s a crap liar. First she knew nothing of any diamonds or Charles Taylor, next she got some ‘dirty stones’ and was sat next to him at dinner. Word in your shell-like Naomi – if someone was taking pictures, don’t bother to lie about it, you’ll just end looking like a dick. Or more of a dick than usual in your case.  Ironic too, that a woman who has spent her working years making huge amounts of money out of being photographed, has now developed such an aversion to the camera. If it weren’t for photographers she’d be just another ordinary person like the rest of us, probably not even able to afford a maid to throw things at or a fancy lawyer for when the air-rage takes over on the plane. And let’s be honest, it’s not so much Naomi that’s in danger from the photographers, it’s them from her. She after all has never been punched by a paparazzi, something that cannot be said in reverse.

Still, how can we have expected her to remember something as mundane as receiving a pouch of diamonds in the middle of the night from a group of blokes after sitting next to a rabid dictator at dinner? I mean Mia Farrow remembered but she’s probably got a really good memory or something and anyway, she woken up in the middle of the night and given presents ALL the time apparently, ‘I get concierges knocking on my door with gifts. It’s quite normal’. Absolutely love, happens to me ALL the time. I can never get a decent night’s kip in a hotel for burly men dropping off uncut gems at the door. But apparently ‘the diamonds were very small’ so of course that means they don’t count doesn’t it Naomi?

All in all, Ms Campbell doesn’t come out of this very well at all. She’s demonstrated a quite spectacular arrogance, both in refusing to come to trial and help the thousands who have lost family, have seen their kids trained as soldiers and introduced to amphetemines, who have been mutilated and also in assuming that she was the person that mattered most at this trial. She’s proven herself to be a woman who takes uncut diamonds off men she barely knows, and let’s be honest, she could have returned them couldn’t she? In fact she’s proved what she is, a pointless streak of ego whose arrogance has been allowed to run unchecked for so long that she now believes her own bullshit.

And you know what the saddest thing about this whole debacle is? That the trial was passing by largely unremarked by the world’s press until Naomi Campbell got involved and started her usual ludicrous antics. If it highlights the issue of blood diamonds and the mess that has been made in Liberia and Sierra Leone then at least something good will have come of it but it’s a sad state of affairs that it takes a twat like Naomi to make the world sit up and take notice of the atrocities that have gone on in Africa.

Retail Therapy

In order to cheer myself up in these annoying and frustrating times I have been out and blued some cash I can't afford on something I don't need, namely these:

3266-4-l

They make me happy. Yes people, I AM that shallow.

Has anyone seen the grouch? Ah yes, there it is....

It’s official. Work smells. For the second year running the letter winged its way through the post to inform me that due to circumstances and reduced profits we will not be receiving a pay rise this year. Happy days. So despite the rising costs of food and fuel and petrol and indeed life itself, I shall be remaining on the same amount as I was in 2008. Will I get be getting an extra couple of days holiday to make up for it like Best Friend has? Will I fuck. I don't even get a decent amount of time to go to a bloody funeral. 1 piddling day for a funeral in Ashford, down on the South coast 6 hours drive my house. I am the least well paid fully-qualified person I know and I’m getting mighty bored of being broke. It may be time to take another foray into the world of job-hunting, the most soul-destroying (and in my case fruitless) waste of time a person can engage in. Wooo. Can you picture my delight? Bet you can. The next person working for more than I earn in the public sector who is going to the union and considering striking because they are getting a two year pay freeze had better not bring their whinge to my door. Because I’ve already had two years of pay freeze and I don’t have a union. Nor do I have a decent pension that is non-contributory, the queen’s birthday as a holiday or the ability to take 6 weeks off on the sick without getting my ass fired. Therefore my sympathy is not exactly overwhelming.

Tired. Grumpy. Skint. Nothing new here then.

Man in dress has sex with dog in moat. I'm not joking....

Just thought I'd share this with you, as it nearly made me choke to death on my morning coffee (courtesy of The Telegraph...)

Transvestite had sex with a dog at English Heritage castle

A transvestite had sex with a dog in the moat of an English Heritage castle.

 

Published: 10:59AM BST 21 Jul 2010

Pendennis Castle Photo: ALAMY

The cross-dressing man was caught with the animal in the dry moat of King Henry VIII's Pendennis Castle overlooking Falmouth Bay in Cornwall.

The 33-year-old mounted the pet after it chased him out of sight of its woman owner.

 

The owner had been walking around the ancient castle with a friend when the pair spotted the lone transvestite on the morning of Saturday July 10th at around a quarter to twelve.

He was wearing a black dress and walking around the steep-walled, empty moat.

As the two ladies spotted the cross dresser he ran away. Later one of the dogs chased after the man; by the time the women had caught up, the man was having sex with the pet.

Castle staff then restrained the man while police were called.

Pendennis Castle, managed by English Heritage, is a popular family tourist attraction and was heaving with visitors in high season.

He was escorted home and later made a "full and frank confession", and received a caution for outraging public decency.

A police spokesman said: "Other agencies were liaised with and he was handed over to them".

A spokesman for English Heritage said: "This was a very rare incident".

It certainly must have been a very rare incident. We went to loads of English Heritage castles as kids and we never once saw a man in a dress fucking a dog in the moat. Interesting to note also that you can receive a custodial sentence for not paying your council tax but you only get a caution for rogering someone's pet in full view of a castle full of tourists. The justice system is a mystery to me.

Yet another NHS system designed to make you go mad...

Yet another NHS system designed to make you go mad.

Don’t get me wrong, the NHS is a marvellous system and without it I’d have probably bankrupted my parents before I reached aged 18, being the clumsy pillock that I am. But sometimes you come across NHS procedures or systems that are designed specifically to make you so angry and frustrated that you go away and leave them alone, thereby saving the NHS some much-needed cash. One of these systems is the appointments system and anyone who has had to deal with this will know exactly what I mean.

The problem was this – at the last eye clinic appointment I went to, the eye was still infected and the little consultant man wanted me to come back in a week for yet another 3 hours of quality waiting room time and another eye check. In the meantime I was to keep putting in the eye drops and eye cream. I informed him that I would be abroad then so he agreed to make it two weeks, which would leave me with an appointment tomorrow. Fine. It would be posted out to me. Lovely. Except that this is clearly far too complex a matter for an organisation with a budget of billions and more staff than virtually any other government funded department because when I opened the post on my return from the airport yesterday (Thursday), it seems that I’d been sent an appointment for the day before, Wednesday, when I’d told the guy I was abroad. The letter said that if I didn’t turn up for my appointment I’d be automatically discharged so I wanted to get it sorted but a quick ring round the secretaries I got diverted to assured me that the old system of never employing a consultant’s secretary that works past midday still holds true so nothing could be done until today.

Which is when the fun really started.

I finally managed to get hold of Mr Turner’s secretary who was none too pleased to hear from me.

“Why did they put you through to me?”

“No idea, I assumed you’d know that.”

“Well I don’t. You want Mr S’s secretary. So I’ll put you through to her”.

Fine. Except that Mr S’s secretary wasn’t exactly helpful either.

“Why have they put you through to me?” (anyone else spotting a pattern)

“Probably because I’m down for Mr S’s clinic at a guess”

Massive snort down the phone “Well I don’t deal with people who have missed their appointments. That’s what the outpatients booking system is for, so I suggest you speak to them.”

“I did. They put me through to Mr Turner’s secretary who put me through to you”.

“Well I can’t help you so you’ll have to ring them back”

Fine you snotty little bitch, I will. “Right then, thanks SO much for your time and effort. Goodbye”

So I did.

Which just made me angry.

“The soonest I can do is September the 13 ^th ”

“Pardon? I think I misheard you.”

“September 13 ^th . In clinic C. Do you want it?”

“But I’ve got an infected eye and I’ve been being treated in clinic F, under a totally different person”.

“Well you’re the one who didn’t bother to turn up for your appointment aren’t you?”

“No, actually I’m not. I’m the one who got an appointment for a time when she’d told the consultant she was in a different country, it’s not the same thing”.

“There nothing in your notes to say you were on holiday”.

“That’s not my fault. I didn’t write them.”

“Well if it’s not in your notes then it’s your fault you got sent the wrong appointment”.

“Fine, well I’ll know for next time to make sure I request to read them before I leave the room, but in the meantime, I need an appointment sooner than that”.

“There’s nothing. Oh hang on, there’s one mid-august.”

“Can I just ask, if last week I could be allocated one in a week, why is there suddenly nothing available for over a month? Has there been a sudden spate of mysterious eye injuries while I was away?”

“Er no, it’s because YOU didn’t turn up for your appointment”.

Now the red mist is beginning to descend, I’m struggling not give the chippy little tart both barrels of my temper and inform her that I’m most impressed with the level of proficiency she’s reached in the ‘NHS Certificate of Being an Unhelpful, Supercilious and Snotty Witch who thinks they are Doing You a Favour by Even Taking Your Call”.

“As I’ve just explained, I didn’t ‘not turn up”.

“Well if you’re not happy you’ll have to go back to the eye A&E and queue again to get seen and get another referral won’t you?”

“Thank you so much for the tip. And if I take the August appointment, what do I do about my medication?”

“What medication?”

“The medication I was given a two week supply of to see me through to the next appointment and that I have to apply to my infected eye 5 times a day to try and heal it.”

“Dunno. I’m outpatients appointments, not my department. You want the nursing staff for that. Do you want this appointment or not?”.

By this time I am struggling not to climb down the telephone and smack the smug twat straight between the eyes.

“Fine, send me the appointment. And can you put me through to the nursing team?”

So she does, and I speak to them, only to be informed that they can do nothing at all to help me and that I’ll have to come into the eye A&E and queue to see a doctor to write me a repeat prescription of the medication that I don’t have enough of because either a consultant or a secretary is too stupid to be able to tell the difference between ‘Wednesday’ and ‘Friday’. Because it’s not like I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed the 12 hours plus of time that I’ve already spent queuing in various departments of the eye hospital is it?

Rest assured, there will be a letter of complaint nestling in the in-tray of the Eye Hospital before the start of next week. And if karma is worth anything, the snotty appointments cow will come back in the next life as a haemorrhoid on the arse of someone unsavoury.

Update: I was in such a bad mood by the time I got home that I had a paddy with the washing machine and kicked the door. Which broke the catch. A man is coming out to look at it on Monday. I'm officially a complete fucking tool.

Once again I make a twat of myself

Well, the eye is on the mend, I think, still have to put 8 lots of eyedrops and 1 lot of eye cream in every day and go back to the clinic on Friday where I will get to while away a few hours in a waiting room before having my eyes examined by the most humourless doctor in the known universe. But it could be worse, I could have had to have the surgery they threatened me with so I'll take the extended wait in the eye-clinic of misery followed by Dr Cheerful anytime.

On Saturday we went to a BBQ. Mr V had a badminton dinner to attend and so I was left to my own devices. For this reason I blame him entirely for the carnage that ensued. By the time Mr V departed, me and The Best Friend had already drunk our way through some campari and orange juice and quite a lot of pink wine. Then the host, a lovely lady who I was meeting for the first time (who has moved in with a friend we've known for ages) suggested that me and Best Friend help her make punch. Massive, epic error. In went a bottle of vodka, a bottle of wine. some grape juice and some grapes (which Best Friend attempted to mash in the jug with a spud masher). Then some more wine went in and some orange juice. The booze content was massively higher than the non-booze content but to our already slightly pissed palates, the punch was not revolting paint stripper, it was fruity happy-juice. And so we drank plenty.

This is maybe why quite a lot of the evening is missing. Things I do remember include howling (and I do mean howling) along to Singstar in front of a lot of people we don't know, one of whom is a member of an award winning, well known band. I have been informed that I was sitting in the garden with Best Friend smoking cigs (I gave up two years ago so christ knows where I thieved them from) and sniffing poppers like we were 15 again. And probably talking absolute shite. I have very little recollection of going home although I do dimly remember removing my false eyelashes, shoes and trousers (not top or makeup), lying on the bed with the room moving about around me and thinking "This is really going to hurt in the morning". And it did, it really really did. I spent the entire day on the sofa trying not to move and to recollect a) how many years it was since I'd been that plastered and b) exactly how big a twat I'd made of myself. I didn't come up with an answer to either question.

Sometimes Best Friend and I are so classy it's painful.....

A proper bastard of a day

It's now 1am.

Did I watch the England v USA match at the pub? No.

Did I watch it at the barbecue I'd planned to be at? No.

Did I watch it at all? No.

Why? Because I spent this evening in A&E. Or the ER for those of you in America. The scratch on my eyeball that I went to get seen to at the walk in centre this evening turned out not be a scratch at all. When the man at a&e, where the walk in centre sent me, looked at it, turns out it's a shard of metal from watching a bloke on site use an angle grinder to cut pipe, it's still stuck in my eye and it's infected. Well done me. And after spending an hour with various sharp implements trying to pick the metal out of my eyeball, he announces that he can't get it all so I'll have to be referred to the eye hospital. Oh joy. Net result - I have to be at the eye hospital at 3pm tomorrow for some other bastard to pick at my eyeball while I try valiently to not pass out. Winner. There's so much more to blog about from my visit to a&e but I'll be honest, I'm struggling to see the funny side right now so I'll have to write about it later.

And did I get sympathy from Mr V when he returned from the pub where he had watched the England game? No. Because Mr V is redefining the concept of pissed. Mr V had to be assisted up the stairs and unceremoniously dumped, fully clothed, onto the spare bed where he merrily bellowed 'LOOOOOOOOVE YOOOOOOOU' repeatedly down the stairs. Great. If he thinks he's going to get sympathy for his self-imposed hangover when I am facing the prospect of having my eyeball probed with needles again he is in for a very rude awakening....

 

The Fridge-Witch is circling again...

 

 

Would you put this woman on reception

Once again the Fridge Witch has swung into action, breaking yet more rules of toilet etiquette and just plain normality.

As I was stood in the toilet cubicle this morning getting some loo roll to blow my cursed, hay-fever ravaged nose I heard her approaching the lavs, coughing and spluttering. Of course she's heading my way, the bloody woman is bog-stalking me. Not wishing to be liberally sprayed with the germs from the 430th virus she's brought into the office, I shut the door. Now it was plainly obvious that someone else was in the loo with her but what does she do? Sits down in the cubicle opposite mine and starts humming away to herself while having a noisy dump. What the fuck?? EVERYONE knows that the rules of bog etiquette are such that you NEVER ever have a dump while someone else is in the other cubicle. Even if you have advanced dystentary you stand in the cubicle, hanging on, praying to whatever deity you follow, until the other person has left and you are alone in the room. It's just how it is. And humming while cranking one out in the company of a colleague? That's surely a sign of insanity.

But that's not all she's done this morning? No folks, the Fridge Witch is the gift that just keeps on giving.

About 45 minutes after 'Turdgate', I went into the loo for a pee. As I returned to my desk my phone was ringing. I picked it up and it's the Fridge Witch, who is manning reception until the usual receptionist arrives at 9. "I've got a call for you" she says. Well thanks for the heads up love, I kind of assumed that the call was for me, as you called my phone to put it through. Anyway, she puts it through and it's a chap I've got to rearrange a meeting with, who sounds a bit bemused. "It's not often I get a running commnetary from reception" he says. I ask him what he means. "Well", he tells me, " I asked for you and the lady on reception informed me that she couldn't put me through because you were on the toilet. Then she said, 'oh wait, she's just coming out of the loo, she must be finished, she's heading down to her office now so I'll put you through'. Not many receptionists share that level of detail". Really? Can you guess why that might be? Because it's utterly fucking unprofessional that's why. And how does she know I'm in the loo unless the mad bitch is spying on me. This is following hot on the heels of the 'coming into the loo while I was having a piss to inform me that someone was on the phone for me' incident. The woman is obsessed with my toilet activity and it's starting to scare me. I'm going to go down to reception in a minute and tell her in no uncertain terms that telling someone she doesn't know that the person they want to speak to is on the crapper is utterly unacceptable behaviour. Does she think the Queen's secretary acts this way? "Oh I'm sorry, her Maj can't speak to you right now, she's gone for a shit. You could hold but I think she'll be a while, she went in with a copy of Horse and Hound. Actually I'll just stick my head round the door and see where she's up to. Liz...Liz...you done yet? Oh right. No, she's going to be at least 20 minutes I'm afraid and I've got to go round the palace and tell everyone else to give it ten minutes once she's out. I'll get her to call you back".

The woman is a fucking nutjob, plain and simple.

Banking bollocks

 

For the love of god what now

Once again my temper is running on nuclear.

I have a Barclays bank account and use online banking. To access it I use a device called 'Pinsentry' which you put your card into, enter your pin number and it gives you a code that you can put into the online site that'll let you access it. Secure, brilliant, works well. That is until the battery dies, which it has on mine. So rather than be a massive girl about this, I decided to change the battery, which I assumed would be one of those little teeny tiny ones like you get in watches. I assumed this because thew back was held on with the tiniest screw I've ever seen in my life, seriously, it's miniscule and to remove it I was going to have to find a screwdriver of such monumentally small proportions that even MI5 would have to have the damned thing custom made. Needless to say that I didn't have one. So I tried to remove it using a variety of other implements. Epic fail, I think it might be made of plasticine disguised as metal and the end result was a mangled looking chunking of silver mess still firmly holding the back in place.

The temper finally went and I gave in.

I rang the bank and ordered a new one and they helpfully gave me 'basic access' which allowed me to move money around my accounts meaning I could pay the mortgage. Good. The credit cards I paid on the phone.

This morning I remembered that I hadn't paid my store account. I logged onto their website and attempted to pay via their secure payment site. Fail. So I rang them to find out why. Apparently, I can't make a payment because my card isn't registered to the address where the account is registered. The account is registered to my parents address because if clothing is delivered to their address and left in the porch, there is a fighting chance it might still be where it was left by the courier when someone arrives home. If it is left on my doorstep at the rougher end of town, it'll have been nicked before the driver has reached the end of my road. I asked if I could change the address the account was registered to and still have the clothes delivered to my parent's address. No. They have to be delivered to the place the account is registered. Genius, if only UPS and Fed-Ex had thought of using such a revolutionary system of working imagine how far they could have gone. Wow, they could have delivered stuff, well, back to where it was sent from. Amazing.

So I rang the bank to see if I could pay the account over the phone from their end. Because I don't have a telephone banking passcode that would be a no. I can go into the bank with my driver's licence and passport, that would be the one bank left in in our area, that constantly has a queue the length of which you would only see somewhere else if Tesco announced it was selling Manolo Blahniks for a fiver and closes around the time I finish work. That's before you take into account that I don't bring my passport into work, since a) everyone knows me and b) I don't have to cross any international borders to get to Trafford Park. In short, the one and only way I can pay this sodding account is to give my mother some cash and get her to pay over the phone using one of her cards that's registered to her address.

Sheer brilliance, security that's so secure I can't access my own money or pay my own account. Give me strength.