Can I talk to a human?

I recently bought 5 airline tickets on Easy Jet. THis, in itself, is a bit of a mission because what starts out seeming like a good deal ends up at least £50 per ticket more expensive than you originally thought, but that's not what I'm moaning about today.

When I had finally trawled through the pages and came to the point of printing off the tickets, (something which always makes me nervous, being of the generation where you had a nice card ticket enclosed in a handy wallet, which arrived by post. Most reassuring) I noticed an alarming message in red alert print:

URGENT! You cannot fly without providing this information.... which turned out to be the passport numbers of all the passengers. Unfortunately, two passports were not available to me, but I figured I could get back into my booking and alter it once they were. This was my first mistake.

Having found out all I needed from one of the passports, I steeled myself and re-entered the EJ website, eventually finding something called api (or something like that) which I figured out (several hours later) might mean: additional passenger information. I entered everything that was required and waited for a confirmation email. This did not arrive, so I had no way of knowing whether I had been successful or not. But it didn't stop there.

Passport number two became available and I tried again. This time the web page would not come up and no matter how many times I tried, the same message of doom appeared. It said something about a cake and a browser, and something about an ej/2 error. Needless to say, this was meaningless gobbledygook to me.

In a panic, I perused the website for a phone number, so I could speak to someone, anyone, a human voice, and ask for their help and reassurance. But the closest thing I could find was an on-line chat type thing. I duly typed in my problem and waited for the anonymous 'voice' to type an answer.

I was promised a prompt response to my question and this is the 'conversation' I had.

(Me) I am trying to add the passport information of all passengers I am travelling with. I cannot do this and am worried you will not let us on the flight, as your warnings are clear. What am I supposed to do?

Several minutes later...

(Mr Yassine) Hi

Five minutes later..

(Mr Yassine) May I ask you why you can't add the ID details please?

(Me - immediately) Because it keeps coming up with a page that tells me there's been an ej/2 error.

(Mr Yassine) Allow me one minute please+

Twenty minutes and still no answer.

(Me) Where are you?

Mr Yassine did not reappear, and I eventually told him I had a life and had to go.

Discussing my dilemma with a self confessed computer geek, I was reassured that what had in fact happened was that the cookie was in the browser.

Ah, now it's all clear. (???? WHAT?)

I was also advised what to do about it, but I didn't understand the instructions for that either.

So, I'm no further on and am mentally preparing myself for another conversation with Mr Yassine, hopefully with a more fruitful conclusion. Otherwise, there's going to be some very disgruntled passengers when we turn up to fly on our two week summer holiday and they tell us we can't get on because we haven't provided the information they needed.

If anyone from Easy Jet reads this, or anyone who knows what I can do, and can communicate in English and not computer speak, please get in touch!

Pizza eating competitions

Apparently, they are trying to make pizza eating competitions into an Olympic sport. Their arguments run along the lines that it requires jaw strength, hand ability and stomach capacity, therefore it qualifies as a sport. Dan 'Deep Dish' Doherty is the current world champion.

I'm sorry, but I think food eating competitions are not just sick, they are actually immoral. Whilst a great deal of the people in our world don't have enough to eat, we in the West are busy stuffing our faces until we literally puke, to win a bloody trophy. It's really not funny.

It makes me sick!

Name droppers

I recently had the opportunity to meet a couple of brothers who seemed to, between them, know every famous person in the world, most of whom I'd never heard of, so it was hard to be impressed. Still, dinner with Kissinger does sound quite cool. Although I thought he was dead. I'm not sure about Nixon being a 'nice guy', but who am I to judge? I've never met him.

The stream of name dropping quickly grew quite tedious and I wondered why these men felt compelled to do this in such a compulsive way. Do they really think ordinary lives are so dull that others will only be interested if you can pepper your conversation with celebrities? It ended up making them look rather sad and pathetic, as if their lives were so empty they could only get off on the backs of other people. Actually, they'd both had quite interesting lives without having to mention anyone well known.

Or maybe it annoyed me because they didn't ask me any questions about my life? I mean, I'm not a bad listener, but this was not conversation, it was a monologue. I can handle Alan Bennett's monologues, but that's about it.

Or, even worse, maybe I resented the fact it brought out a side of me which wanted to compete by listing any encounter I've had with anyone vaguely well known, thereby lowering myself to their level.

Chihuahuas

DOn't get me wrong, I love dogs. I love their loyalty, and their eagerness and their affection. But chihuahuas are grotesque. They look like little gremlins, and when I see one, I have this horrible urge to tread on it, as if it's some sort of vermin. I am not normally violent, and this compulsion worries me.

Plus, chihuahua owners treat them as if they're babies, dressing them up in foul little outfits and talking to them in gaga language. So, perhaps it's not the poor little dog's fault, but their owners who should be trodden on.

This is a Happy Place

Recently I have noticed a strange phenomenom springing up in Wellington, our nearest town. Many of the shops have taken to putting signs in their windows declaring 'This is a Happy Place'. I walked into one not long ago, and the woman was miserable as sin, and rude to boot. So I don't believe them. You don't need to tell people you're happy, just show them!

If we all smiled a bit more, I'm sure the world would be a happier place.

Sandra's words of wisdom.

Conferencing

I phoned up the school where I used to teach to offer a bird box with a camera in it (my sister in law is a very generous person, and in theory it's a great present, but in practice I can't see my husband and I sitting watching eggs hatching out very often, much more beneficial for a school full of children).

Anyway, I digress from the moan. In response to my question, 'May I please speak to the head?' the nice lady who answered said, 'I'm afraid she's conferencing with a group of children at the moment.'

Conferencing? What the hell is that. Does it mean 'talking' with them. If so, then why not call it that. Since when was a school a corporate organisation where you have 'conferences'.

I hate the whole bent towards making everything into a business, so that you don't have pupils any longer, you have 'learners'. What's wrong with the word pupils, or even children? And 'targets', why impose targets on young children. Often targets they can't hope to achieve, because, as we know, children all develop at different rates and in different ways. So whole year targets are desperately unfair on those who may have had a blip in their progress.

I could go on and on about many things that make my blood boil about our education system, but I won't because I have to go to work, but conferencing does seem to me the last straw.

Toxic anti bacterial sprays

I'm going to have a moan about the overuse of these nasty toxic sprays that the advertisers would lead us to believe are absolutely essential for our health and welfare. You see these sanitised women spraying every surface compulsively, as soon as anything has been put on it. No germ is allowed to reproduce and they have lovely, clean, white homes, safe for their children, which they clearly love more than I love mine (the ads would have you believe). My theory is that they are directly responsible for the rise in allergies such as excema and asthma (this is obviously not based on any scientific knowledge whatsoever) and the continual coughs and colds many of the young seem to suffer from. A little dirt is good, it builds up immunity. (That's what I always tell myself, anyway, when I can't be bothered to do the cleaning)

In the pub, where I work, the young seem to have been totally brainwashed by the type of ads mentioned above. They use the clear anti bacterial spray to wipe down the tables, without first giving them a good old rub with soap and water, which is what actually removes all the grease and things that work their way into the wood. In my view, although the germs might be gone, these tables are not actually properly clean.

At the end of service, when we're tidying up and wiping down and I'm clutching my trusty hot wet cloth with a bit of washing up liquid on it, they are busy spraying all the work surfaces with white foamy stuff with the enthusiasm which a 14 year old boy might douse himself in Lynx, or FCUK or some such foul deoderant/body spray.

This supposedly grease dissolving foam, bubbles up in a menacing way and the fumes penetrate deep into all our lungs.

I say, what's wrong with good old hot water and soap? In my view, the only time these types of products need to be used is when you have about 20 years worth of encrusted black shit lining the inside of your cooker (such as I do). Then, you will be forgiven for using it, but remove any living creature from the building while it works its evil.

There's also a little sneaking suspicion that the obsessive spraying and rubbing is an excellent way of avoiding picking up a dish towel and doing some good old fashioned drying up. These two jobs go on simultaneously at the end of a shift, and guess who always ends up drying?