A Sore Neck, A Bad Organ and a Tiresome Store Card

Plans to travel up to God's own county of Durham had twice to be put on hold thanks to my neck and shoulder problem playing up. I'd like to describe this as a war wound because it sounds much more romantic than a car wound, which is what it is. Basically people kept driving into me despite frequent changes of car and colour. Three cars were written off in two years - and you think you're unlucky?

Monday morning dawned earlier than I would wish thanks to the evil Uberbinherren's thoughtless diktat and I once again had to leave the comfort of the 4 drawer sprung edge divan. All three sorties by the recycling binherren passed without incident. Call Kojak a sceptic if you will but I continue to feel uneasy by their meek behaviour during the last few weeks.

On Tuesday I went to the metropolis of Manchester to attend a concert with my slightly lapsed veggie friend. A tedious journey there thanks to the evil Transpennine Express not deigning to stop at my station. I was particularly looking forward to it as it featured the magnificent organ at the Bridgewater Hall. The organist (I shall not name him) was a renowned musician, according to the programme notes and I had obtained particularly good seats to get the best from the performance. We settled into our seats and awaited the maestro with anticipation. On he strode to the stage but instead of the usual verbal introduction he simply commenced to play. Quel disappointment! Notes were bumbled and timing was out several times during the first piece. This was repeated throughout the performance and I wondered if his unwillingness to speak was due to embarrassment. Standing outside at the interval we saw one man dump his programme in a rubbish bin and walk off. Since I had chosen this particular concert I spent much of the second half apologising to my pal. We did manage to claw back some pleasure from the evening by repairing to "The Briton's Protection", an excellent hostelry purveying a fine selection of cask ales. Once again our enjoyment was marred by having to leave early thanks to the thoughtless Transpennine Express. Even so, it was 11.30pm when I reached the warm comfort of Chez Kojak.

A few weeks ago I had occasion to travel to the big city of Preston. While I was there I happened to wander into one of the larger department stores, the one which begins with "Deb" and ends with "hams". I am not quite sure how this happened. One moment I was passing a "Sale" sign in the window and the next moment I found myself inside. There were many very good bargains to be had in the bedding department and as I had some rather elderly bedding I felt compelled to purchase several items. When I came to pay, the very helpful lady mentioned that if I signed up for a store card I would get a further 10% reduction that day and a similar reduction each time I used the card. As an added bonus I would be entitled to a free tea or coffee in the cafeteria. Since I am a gentleman of a certain age, the facilities provided in the cafeteria were, by this time, an attraction in themselves and the free beverage would spare me the embarrassment of sneaking in to avail myself of them. Beguiled by all these attractions I duly signed, oblivious of the growing queue behind me.
The bill for all my bargains arrived this week and having previously shopped online at this store I thought I would register the store card to make payment more easy. Big mistake! Despite all my efforts the system refused to acknowledge the card. Finally phoning the so-called "helpline" and after being passed from pillar to post in various countries I was informed that the system would not accept details if I used the Mozilla Firefox internet provider! Although this seemed ridiculous I changed to Internet Explorer but with exactly the same result.  By this time Kojak's ire was well and truly up! I refused to call the Customer Service number as I did not see why I should  pay 10p per minute for a phone call when their system was clearly at fault. I sent an irate email informing them that they could keep their damned card and in future would shop elsewhere. Several days later I am still awaiting a reply. When I attempted to make a payment online without the card I discovered that although the card bears the shop's name it is actually managed by one of the major banks.  A further long and complicated procedure followed before I could pay my debts. In all my internet life I have never experienced so much trouble to pay for an item online. Thank goodness I do not bank with Santander!

English Summer

 
Next weekend I depart for the sunny shores of Malta for a weeks holiday with friends. Looking at the view from Chez Kojak and mindful of the weather forecast for the coming week I can hardly wait!