(Monday) Moan 45

Vintage outing

We had our kitchen refitted last week, which meant we had to eat out every night as we had no facilities at home.

 

Most days it was fine.  We didn’t want fancy food or service – just something tasty and relatively quick.  So, hats off to the various pizza-type chains who all met the criteria and managed to come up with gluten and dairy-free food that I was able to enjoy.

Our only disappointment was a trip to our local Vintage Inn.  This was a last minute decision and we were left to regret all the other options we had discarded when plumping for this one. 

 

In fact, it wasn’t that the food was not perfectly good – it was.  Being a Sunday it was a shame that they had run out of any roast options – or rather that the chef wouldn’t serve any because they had fallen below the standards he had set.  I should applaud that, I suppose. 

 

No, the problems were to do with the experience as a whole.  Let’s see, there was the man who had fallen asleep at his table, perhaps because of the very slow service, perhaps because he had had a very hard day – who knows?  Sleeping is discourteous, but snoring loudly is quite another thing!  I don’t blame his companions, who tried valiantly to rouse him on a number of occasions, and though he eventually awoke and ate his main course (cold by now) he then fell asleep again before his dessert arrived.

Then there was the fractious child, up far too late, of course, and then denied any food by the slow service.  This was compounded by the constant stream of people heading for the door to go for a smoke, and leaving that door open every time, leaving the rest of us in a draught.  We took it in turns to get up and shut the door, but rather than this sending a message to the smokers that they ought to shut it themselves, one of them decided to put the door on the latch, so that it stayed open permanently.  Fortunately, an ostentatious show of taking it off the latch and shutting it very firmly did not produce an angry response from the miscreant.

Still, at least we weren’t the customers who were sat at their table at 20.50 with a menu, but then left by the waitress until at 21.15 she came over to them to say that the kitchen was now closed.  Her offer to ask the chef if he might possibly reopen to serve them something seemed doomed to failure, and the customers knew this and just left.

 

Note to self – give this place a wide berth for a while to give them time to get their act together.

 

 

Del Boy to lead us to the promised land?

I was deeply irritated by the extensive coverage on the BBC of the upcoming local elections for a week or so before they actually happened last week.  No doubt they are obliged to cover such things, but it really did seem like a promotion for the election rather than reporting of events.

 

Then we had a screen full of Nigel Farage – so much free publicity for his eclectic bunch of potential councillors.  They are not a protest party, apparently.  No, people vote for them because they support their policies and want to see change in this country.  Yeh, right.

 

Maybe it’s Nigel’s magnetic personality and persuasive tongue that attracts people to his party?  Incidentally, I call it his party, because I challenge anybody to name any other leading light in the party – and yes, I know about Neil Hamilton, and rest my case.

 

Farage obviously works hard on his image, with so many poses of him with cigarette or pint in hand.  But what’s with the Del Boy coat and the trilby hat?  Are these really the things that will attract people to take him seriously?  It seems so, in combination with his village idiot looks and statements. 

 

In truth, he and his party are not much more sensible than the Monster Raving Loony Party – and at least they don’t take themselves too seriously.  Who could fail to support a policy of instructing the RSPCA to ensure that all meerkats come in twos, in order to enable the public to effectively compare the meerkat?  (Yes, that is a Loony policy proposal rather than a UKIP one – but I’m sure Nigel would adopt it if he thought people would go for it.)

 

 

Del Boy not on his own

For all that Nigel Farage appears to be a joke leader, he’s not alone amongst the political ‘elite’ of this country, is he? 

I mean, what’s going on when our leaders are as uninspiring a bunch as mad Boris, boring Nick, unctuous Dave, unhinged Alex and invisible Ed?

 

Add to that their supporting cast of the likes of Ed Balls, Nigel Evans, Patricia Hodge and so on, and it’s no wonder we are in a mess, is it?

 

 

Pavement artists

The local council recently decided to replace all the pavements in our street. Out with the old-fashioned paving slabs and in with the new, smooth asphalt.  No problems with that.  But the sub-contractors tasked with carrying out the work seemed to lack what you might describe as attention to detail – or perhaps the expression should be common sense? 

 

They had obviously been told to put in edging strips alongside what remains of the grass verges on the street.  So far, so good. But design was not their strong point, as the haphazard line of edging stones demonstrates.  And what are we to make of the decision to edge half of a strip of grass, but not the other?    OK, it’s not earth-shattering, but it’s visually unattractive and they have been paid some of my Council Tax to carry out this work, so I’m not happy!