The Isle of Man Gets Another Mention At The Olympics

Olympic Diving Fail - watch more funny videos

Tact

I have none, fact.  Also, how the fuck did I manage to work in offices for 7+ years with so many bitchy 30/40 something women?  It is like being back in the playground and maybe it's just my older less tolerant self but I don't think I'd last a week in that sort of place any more.  How do you fellas do it?  If early retirement as a millionaire isn't motivation enough to pull my finger out I guess keeping me out of offices full of fucking idiots will do.

Why Lie?

There are probably times in life when things can be made a bit easier with a little lie, for example when the wife asks you anything...anything at all.  Dealing with a customer in your phone shop doesn't come across as one of those times so why does it seem that every time I have to deal with Manx Telecom they lie to me?

Manx Telecom are getting rid of the vast majority of their free Internet allowance on their mobile contracts (unless you buy a data add-on) so I decided to switch my contract to Sure, when I set off to do this at 10 this morning I assumed like a mental that I wasn't the first person to ever try and do this,  to be honest the service I got in Sure made it sound that way as well.  An hour tops she said, it took 45 minutes, with 1 stumbling block, my phone was network locked.

Bit of a bugger but nothing serious, 2 minutes later I was in the MT shop waiting to be served.  Happily enough I explained the problem.  The young lad told me I hadn't bought the phone from them because they don't lock them.  I explained again I had, 500 fucking quid, I remember it very well.  He denied it again.  Still in pleasant mode I explained I had bought it from them, I don't know where THEY bought it from but I'd definitely bought it from them.  So he eventually agreed to look, took the information he needed to get me an unlock code (if I had bought it from them) and disappeared out the back.  Another 2 minutes passed and he came back, admitted they had sold me the phone, it was an O2 phone and he had contacted them, took my details and said he'd phone me with the code within a couple of hours.  This is all very dull.  I was still very nice.  But he was lying.

6 hours later I have given up waiting and have just spent 20 minutes on the phone to Manx Telecom being passed from pillar to post.  If I have to explain to one more person that yes I bought my fucking phone from you and yes it is fucking locked I may go postal.  Eventually I speak to somebody who takes the time to look, no it wasn't an O2 phone, no they didn't phone them, no it won't take "about 2 hours".  The reality, I don't know where the hell Manx Telecom sourced my phone before selling it to me, nor do I give a shit.  They have e-mailed (excellent customer service right there) whoever it was and it may take a couple of days to get a response.  Frankly I was happy to have been told the truth, the SIM gets chucked in another phone for the time being, no biggy.  Isn't the truth great.

So why did that little sod lie in the first place?  What was the point?  I was being nice, I wasn't being shouty, all I wanted was my phone unlocking so I could use my new SIM in it.  They thought it shouldn't be locked, I thought it shouldn't be locked, get it unlocked and no harm done.  I hate this crap, there's just no need for it at all.  It makes me write really boring blog posts just to whinge about their shit customer service and that does nobody any favours, especially not on an island where you have no choice but to use Manx Telecom for some things.  

3 Things I Noticed This Week

1. England football fans are fucking idiots. They are acting all cool like they're not expecting much but then at the first sign that the team isn't a sack of wank* it's the usual "we're going to win it" shit. Football isn't coming home, 3 lions on your shirt mean fuck all when you fall over at the first sign of somebody invading your personal space and there is more pass and move in the local girls under 12 team.

2. Nobody in Europe likes the English. That is all.

3. Women and migraines. How come they never have a migraine when it's something they want to do? Oh no I'm sorry, I can't go out tonight drinking because I have a migraine, never heard it. Home early from work? You want to do what with that? Migraines ahoy. Also, men don't get migraines, we just have the odd headache, usually for a reason, that reason being something other than us having to do something we don't want to do.

*They must have been watching a different game to me, other than Ireland they are the worst team in the tournament by a long way.

Because Fat People Are Always Funny

Nearly £35k A Year To Move Bags

Holy Mother Fucking Shit. At least the Bus Drivers need to pocess "some" skill to earn their £40k.

1. I know time served, fully qualified, professional software developers who earn a lot lot less than this.

2. Don't even get me started on how this compares to what nurses earn, the world has gone mad.

3. This isn't anywhere near the limit of the cushy little government numbers on the go, somebody should ask how much you can make CLEANING the buses.

4. The sooner we escape this retarded little inbred shit hole island ran by union fucktards the better.

Bear Grylls Sacked

Good.

Survivorman is much better. For a start he only kills and eats stuff because he's hungry, not because he's some sort of twat that gets a kick out of trying to batter everything he comes across to death "for the viewers".

I Don't Know How Anybody Does It

I see they are wanting school kids to get into programming now? This isn't a bad idea, everybody claims to be a programmer these days yet how many actually know the core skills (we're not talking copy and paste from examples on the web here)?

But I do worry what they are letting themselves in for because maybe I'm just getting old but I've had my fill of it. Back in the good old days you could write a good program in say 6 months and then 3 years later it would still be a good program. For the past 5 or so years I've noticed that by the time I've finished something (using super new RAD tools, so a matter of weeks to finish a project) it is already out of date. 90% of stuff is now so reliant on the Internet and yet the Internet changes so much on a day to day basis that writing solid software is an almost impossible task, it's a major pain in the ass. We live in a world of constant updates, what the hell was ever wrong with if it's not broke don't fix it? Why can't we have good old protocols like SMTP, POP3, FTP any more? I wrote programs in 1997 around those and they still work great! However I've got software that I wrote in 2010 to take advantage of certain web services using SOAP and they might as well not exist. All it takes is some twat on the other side of the world to "update" something and all your work is for shit. Bastards.

Listen to me kids, forget computers, forget programming, do something real with your lives. Learn how to fix pipes, play with wires or build walls. This computer lark is just bullshit. Bring on the Zombie apocalypse.

I Reiterate - Cancer You Are A Cunt

It's Not All Doom And Gloom

If you look closely at those figures (taken from this years Budget Press meeting) what you'll see is massive growth in our economy in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. Wow man, just look how those government income figures explode doing away with the need to pillage reserves! That sort of growth way outstrips anything we've seen for many a year on the island, I wonder where it's coming from? Or maybe, just maybe, somebody plucked a couple of numbers out of their ass and stuck it into a spreadsheet? Europe is predicted to still be in a mess going throuigh 2015, the UK is predicted to still be in a mess going through 2015 and yet the Isle of Man expects to see nearly a 12% growth in Government income in 2 years.

But if it's in an Excel spreadsheet it must be true.

In Job News

My daughter has managed to get a job. The interview was organised by the school and by all accounts it went very well, flawless in fact, an offer was made immediately so that's all good. She' hasn't told me when she is due to start..

Oh she's just telling me something.........

What do you fucking mean it wasn't a real interview and there was no job? What the fuck is a mock interview? Bastards.


(2 updates in 1 day, that should cover the posting quota for the first 6 months of this year, I can go back to being sick now)

Are Nurseries Important?

There's been a lot of understandable anger on the rock in the last 24 hours, news that government nurseries and pre-school facilities are to close has not gone down well! However for every angry mother there is somebody else who will tell you that they've not had access to those sort of facilities anyway because of the post code lottery and another who will tell you that "whatever else" is more important than pre-school.

I have a lot of friends who are going to be affected by this (the early 30 somethings, desperate for kid crew) and if you were having kids on the understanding that the facilities were going to be there it must be a hell of a shock when the announcement comes they are to close. I feel shit for them.

Trouble is you have to think of it in terms of the VAT thingy ma' jib. When the dust settles the island will have lost a 3rd of its income - A WHOLE FUCKING THIRD. Imagine in your house what would happen if you lost a third? Life's priorities would suddenly change to Rent/Mortgage,Food and Heat. That's it. There is no room for anything else, like to haves, luxuries etc - all gone. This is what the Isle of Man faces. This is the reality of the situation, bound to be made worse by todays budget, but what I can't understand is how they can still pay thousands of paper pushers way above the market rate (£24k+ for an un-skilled, GCSE C in English administrator..really?????), not contribute realistic amounts towards their own pensions and spend hundreds of thousands of pounds relaying some pavements, all in this reality? Lose some of the non-jobs, make the poeple who benefit from the pension pay for it and leave the pavements in the same shitty state we've had to put up with when the times were good for fucks sake! It's no wonder people get pissed off.

How can you ever expect people to understand that you're on the bones of your ass when you're walking around with an open wallet for your mates to pillage?

Edit - Lets add some number for fun, just so people can see how desperate a hole the Isle of Man is in.

Government wages = £270 million
Benefits = £250 million

Isle of Man Governments Total Income = Not a whole lot more than that

Or For Simple People

Give Me My Fucking Life Back

It's now more than 4 months since I felt an ever so slight twinge in my guts which has gone on to cause a whole fucktitude of problems. In those 4 months the very best I've felt is every so slightly better than utter shit. Christmas was a right off, New Year even more so. There have been times where I've been so creased in pain that I've just thought bollocks to the lot of it. My weight crashed by more than 2 stone, I'm weaker now than I have ever been.

My own doctor has been less than useless, cunt doesn't seem like a strong enough word, but given his name it'll have to do. I'm convinced he thinks I'm either after a sick note or imagining it. I didn't work a single day for 2 and a half months, I claimed fuck all, I never have, I never will. ALL I've wanted is to feel better. As for imagining it, I don't exactly fit into the hypocondriact bracket. I've put up with puking blood, dislocations, broken bones , without going near a doctor. Until this last 4 months I average a visit every 4 years. If I'm saying that this is hurting they I assure you it is fucking hurting.

But I decided against sitting on my arse waiting for Dr "If It's Not Cured With Pain Killers Then I Don't Give A Fuck" to do anything. I've contacted as many experts as possible, all have been helpful. I've gotten enough dietary advice and supplements to get me back eating again (soup and cereal was all I could keep down for more than 6 weeks) and I've even put on weight and am now holding steady. I'm still weak as a kitten, I can't do a single pull-up but...

Thanks to another experts "rough idea" diagnosis things are finally looking like there might be an end in sight. Typing this now I can't feel any pain around my lower back, nothing, my guts don't feel right but they don't feel anything like as wrong as they usually do. I went to the gym this morning and 1. wasn't sick 2. got the post exercise buzz. The last time I tried this in November I lasted 5 minutes and had to get a taxi home to bed.

Things aren't perfect, I still have a bastard lump where I shouldn't have, some numbness and a bit of pain plus it's only the first day I've felt even half right, but having some clue as to what is causing the problems at least lets me work on building up things around them. Either way it's got to be better than being told "I don't know" followed by a blank stare and then "bye" by your doctor. I wonder who do I write to to request a National Insurance refund?

Here We Go Again

Just Over A Week Ago - The Isle of Man Is A Lovely Place That Complies With Everybody

Today - We Piss Off More People With Our Taxes

Every-fucking thing we do over here to do with offshore finance, e-gaming, the shipping and aircraft registries, the captive market, it all relates to tax savings in one way or another, businesses and rich individuals DO NOT come here for the pleasant weather and friendly local work force. Until the fucking retards in charge (yeah we have new retards) realise this and learn to keep their/our heads down we're never going to be in the "clear". Pretending that we're best buddies with all these countries we have information exchange agreements with is just as big a "come and get us" flag as anything else.

In short, as long as the average wealth on the island is equal to or better than the UK then we're never going to get any peace, never. People need to stop pretending and accept it for what it is.

Barclays Are Still Useless

It's been a few years now since I stopped having anything to do with Barclays, it's nice to see that their standards haven't improved though and they are still the most useless fucking bank on the face of the planet.

The old man went in to shut his account last month, he's old so doesn't do things by e-mail or phone, he goes in person and speaks to bank staff like they are some sort of long lost friend. The "lovely" girl at Barclays told him it would be no problem and that his account was closed there and then...which he took at face value. Now 1 of 2 things should happen here:-

1. The remaining balance is transfered and the account is closed then and there (as said)

2. If there's a process to close the account everything stays as it is until the day the account is to be closed when a final balance transfer is processed

Not hard is it? Except what happened in this case was the remaining balance was transfered that day, the Barclays personal wanker says the account is closed, but in reality the account is left open with a zero balance. £2.60 to whoever can guess what happens next?

Just to prove that Barclays aren't the only usless bank on this very small island the IOM Bank haven't actually done all the direct debit transfers as they said. Of course the fall back on this is anybody trying to do a DD will have there request bounced cos the Barclays account is closed? If it's because they haven't processed the DD change form in time then GABOS on them, no doubt it would get sorted out along the line but like I said this hasn't happened.

Anyhoo, jump forward to today and what you see is direct debits coming out against the £0.00 balance STILL OPEN Barclays account and then a overdraft charge of £44 added on for good measure. You really are a bunch of useless twats of the highest order. So on seeing the statement I decide to question it, using the phone number given on the back of the statement, for enquiries. Nothing has changed at Barclays, nothing! I speak to somebody in their call centre who doesn't even want to know the account number, all he can repeat is it's not his fault and my old man will have to speak to the branch. No "I'll check the status of your account closure". No "Sorry about that, I'll make some enquiries". No fuck all. It's superb customer service.

So between 2 banks, they've both managed to do nothing of what they said they'd do, they've caused a lot of stress to an old man that's not long lost his wife and while they are it one of them has somehow managed to swindle £44 out of him for the pleasure. Take a fucking bow.

But It's Free?

I've been pretty sick lately, and by pretty I mean very and by lately I mean for 3 months. It's shit, the only thing shitter is the NHS and I wanted to rant long and hard about it...but fortuntaly for me somebody else who has just moved from Canada (Free health) to the US has summed it up for me already.

====

This may come as a shock to people living in Canada, but the medical service in the US is far superior to anything offered in Canada. When I take Sally to see a doctor in the US, I don’t have to wait. The appointment time is the actual time to see the doctor, not the time to wait in the waiting room. Test results are usually sent back the same day, and you can see a specialist without a referral.

Canadians will say their medical system is free and available to everyone. That’s only half true. The BC Medical Services Plan (MSP) isn’t free. You do have to pay for it if your family makes over $30,000 a year. If you make less than $22K a year, then it’s free. There is premium assistance between $22,001 to $30,000. The monthly premium rates are $60.50 for one person, $109.00 for a family of two and $121.00 for a family of three or more. You will have to pay out of your pocket for extended and dental coverage. I pay about the same in the US for my medical and dental as I do in the Canada, but the service is way better in the US.

The “universal” in universal medical a code word for, “hurry up and wait!” Yes, Canada’s universal medical system will pay for that MRI scan, if you’re willing to wait six months to a year. This is why you see so many Canadians going to the US for treatment but not a single American coming to Canada for treatment. Unless your case is considered life threatening, you will be waiting far longer than a patient in the US with private or company medical.

========

Now if you just replace Canada with the IOM you'll get the point. The 6 months is accurate as well. I REALLY hope the government enjoys giving all my NI money and most of my taxes to sponging twats why I get left to rot.

My Life Hits A New Low

Soya Milk... is there anything gayer in the world than milk that's not actually fucking milk? Next thing I'll be developing symptoms of hay-feaver or "allergies"...and at that point enough will be enough and Valhalla awaits.

When Blogs Vanish

What's happened to LC's blog, anybody know? My work from home life is so sad that keeping up with the few blogs I follow is actually seen as a highlight of the day.

And whilst I'm at it, Ben enable comments you cunt!

An Ode To Cancer

Cancer, you are a fucking cunt.

Why I Will Never Give My Credit Card Details To Microsoft Again As Long As There Is A Hole In My Ass

When you combine these bank transactions:-



with the fact my xbox live account is now in the name of somebody called Audrey from Russia who has managed to setup a Live profile without ANY valid information and associate it with my tag. Then when you add in the fact that those points were spent in Russia when every piece of information related to the original account (and the card used for it for fucks sake) specifies UK - all without anything being flagged at Xbox. Then you look a little closer and see that the points were used to buy games already played and completed with that account, and still nothing is flagged. Then when you add in that the password associated with the hacked account has only ever been used with that account, and that it wasn't even fucking changed as part of the hijack. Then just to top it off you have Microsoft denying that they have a security issue when the simplest check on Twitter shows this to be a little more than isloated:-

Xbox Live Accounts Hacked

And then you get to spend an hour racking up phone charges because they are experiencing high demand for support...which have nothing to do with the multitude of cunts who have gained access to other peoples accounts of course ;) At least Sony had the decency to admit there was a problem and turn off their system. Wonder when Xbox will do the same?