While out this bank holiday Monday I was disgusted to see bespectacled nerds lording it around with attractive women, as if they were normal people, like the rest of us.

What sort of breeding stock are they? They can’t even see straight for fuck’s sake. It would benefit humanity if people with glasses were neutered so they couldn’t procreate, leaving the rest of us normal, able bodied people to live free of their goggle eyed interference.

I’m not saying this out of anger, I just feel the human race would benefit without the constant adverts for Specsavers and other such bollocks.

Neuter the glasses wearing community, make Britain a better sighted place to live.

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Now, you know it’s not like me to be sexist. OK, so maybe occasionally, but this time it’s a valid point.

This weekend I went out in the Hollyoaks wannabe infested town of Chester. It was all very nice, filled with make-up clad women looking for footballers perhaps, but pleasant nonetheless.

However, after entering what seemed like the tenth bar (the actual number may have been far higher in truth) we found ourselves stood at the bar waiting to be served. It’s not like there was a queue, although there were others waiting, it’s just that no one was being served at all.

There were four barstaff, all women… yet they were all ignoring the customers. Why? What minor disaster had caused these women to completely forget the jobs they’d been paid for? Had someone found a copy of Heat magazine? Had George Clooney just wandered in?

No, these women were all cleaning. Two of them were sweeping up a glass that one of them had just dropped, and the other two were wiping the bar… thoroughly.

I’m all for a clean bar, I’m fine with women cleaning if it makes them happy, but when I, and several others, are stood at the bar and there are FOUR barstaff NOT serving; I draw the line.

That would not have happened had they been male.

So, barmen not barmaids!

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Several years ago, back in 2004, I was looking to buy a new car. My Ford Capri had decided enough was enough and it’s daily 80 mile round trip from Newport to Bristol was too much for it. Being the ‘over the top’ person I am I looked to a BMW Z3 for my second car.

No sense letting the grass grow eh?

So, armed with my Parkers guide price for each model dating back to 1996, and the average mileage to expect for the year, I looked around a few garages for a Z3. One such garage I looked at was the Carcraft centre in Newport. Now, before I went I researched on the Internet (as I do) and read an awful lot of negative comments about Carcraft. Many of the comments said the same thing; their cars were over priced and well over average mileage.

I thought I’d give them a chance anyway.

I went in and was immediately set upon by this car dealer who wouldn’t let me enter the warehouse until I’d given him my name, address and phone number. No matter how much I said I wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Reluctantly I gave him the info he wanted and proceeded to look at the cars.

They had a few BMW Z3 models, one in particular I quite liked the look of however the price was high for the age and it had some damage to the drivers side front panel.

When I inquired further I found the Mileage was 20,000 miles over average for the year. I figured there was some room to barter here, with the mileage and the scratches to the bodywork.

I approached a salesman and explained my position, how I’d researched the value of the car and the average mileage, then told him what I thought the car was worth.

Do you know, he didn’t even reply to me. He just turned his back and walked away. I couldn’t believe how rude this guy was. Not a word. He wasn’t even a junior, he was a senior salesman as I’d been told I needed to speak to him if I wanted to discuss the price.

It seems what I’d read on line was true. Carcraft sell high mileage cars for extortionate prices. They rely on people struggling to get finance in order to rip them off with their ‘offers’.

Has anyone else had any experience with Carcraft? I’d love to know if my experience was a typical one.

I later bought a Z3 from a garage in Bristol, £3,000 cheaper than the one in Carcraft, no damage and with over 30,000 less miles on the clock.

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Last week, the 26th March to be precise, I contacted the Inland Revenue over their mistake where they are demanding £4.17 from me in interest on a late payment, which was late because they sent my details to the wrong address. They have admitted their mistake and have rescinded the fine they placed upon me, however they still seem to want the outrageous sum of £4.17 in interest, on their mistake.

I was told by some jobsworth that £4.17 was beyond his powers and that it would have to be passed to a higher authority, who would contact me within 3 days.

It’s now April 1st.

Naturally I have heard nothing. How much of the tax payers money, our money, must we spend in wages on these idiots just to clear up the issue over £4.17? Is all of this really necessary?

I despair at the state of this country, how the bureaucracy of institutions such as the Inland Revenue is so full of itself that it takes numerous phone calls, countless man hours and several different people just to rectify a mistake to the tune of £4.17.

No wonder this country is falling apart.

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Everyone who knows me knows what a caring, sensitive soul I am. I’m all for charities and stuff, such as Cancer against Christians, yet I do take issue when someone’s a bit stingy with the meat.

For example, I was at the Leigh Arms last week for lunch and used their carvery. The chef asked whether I wanted turkey or beef, and naturally I said both (as any hungry chap would) and the git carved the thinest, tiniest slice of turkey I had ever seen, then equaled his skills with the blade when he cut me a sample of beef.

What am I, Kate Moss?

So, I was forced to make up for the lack of sustenance on my plate when it came to helping myself to the vegetables. I piled the plate higher than many thought physically possible, with more food than any one person could hope to eat.

Obviously, I didn’t finish it. In truth I barely made a dent and it took me a while to burrow down far enough to even find the meat.

This prompted many people to comment how I wasn’t thinking about World hunger, starving children in Africa and all that bollocks. Well yes, while I’m sure the food on my plate, and indeed the food I wasted, would have fed a family of nine in Africa, my selecting a few less sausages and roast potatoes doesn’t mean the food I left on the carvery counter was going to be posted to Kenya.

It wasn’t, it would have been eaten by some other glutenous diner, thrown away, or worse yet heated up for the next day. My piling all of that food on my plate simply meant that the Leigh Arms would have to order more Yorkshire puddings the following week.

No African kids would be harmed in the process.

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Earlier this month, the last remaining survivor of World War I died in France. Lazare Ponticelli was an Italian who decided to ‘fight’ for the French, for some strange reason.

The full story can be read here.

France’s last remaining veteran of World War I died Wednesday at age 110 after outliving 8.4 million Frenchmen who fought in what they called “la Grande Guerre.”

Now, while I think it’s great that someone who was around in WWI is still alive, or was earlier this month, is it really that much of an achievement that a French ‘soldier’ managed to survive so long? Let’s face it, the French didn’t actually do a lot of fighting anyway. The Germans and the British were at it hammer and tongs the whole time, so any of them surviving today is something worth shouting about, but as France’s contribution to war is to eat some cheese, drink some wine, give a Gallic shrug and offer up an extensive collection of finely made white linen in exchange for their flag, any Frenchman surviving isn’t really that surprising.

If  Lazare Ponticelli put as much effort into war as his adopted countrymen then he was always going to last a good few years.

As for why an Italian would choose to fight for France, that’s a whole other ball game.

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