Used Plasters

I go to a gym which has its own pool, but I rarely use it because a few days later I’ve got a runny nose or a bad throat. The other week while I was off work I ventured back into the pool, it gets really quiet between 12.30 and 1.30 when everyone else gets out to have dinner. The pool was nice and empty and I started off enjoying the swim, but after a couple of lengths I came across a brown lump floating on the water’s surface. I swam round it and got out of the pool soon after that. I couldn’t decide what it was. It looked like a big mole had become detached from somebody. Other times I’ve been in the pool I’ve found leaves and used plasters floating about. It does make me wonder if I’m doing more harm going to the gym than good. In the shower I went to put my shampoo in the tray on the wall that I thought was supposed to be for such a purpose. Obviously it’s not meant for shampoo or shower gel, it’s meant for your used plasters and chewing gum. I put my shampoo on the floor, but I do feel unclean after I’ve been to the gym. Many times I grip the handles of the cross trainer to feel them wet, or even sticky sometimes. With the state of the changing rooms I often wonder if I should have a second shower at home.

Shocking in the shower

I had a day off in the week this week and at the gym there was a distinct lack of health and safety. In the changing rooms there were a couple of maintenance men putting stuff up on the wall in the showers. I don’t know how, but there are always soap dispensers and racks for soap and stuff being pulled off the wall in there. So these two had got and extension cable running from the entrance to the changing rooms all the way through to the showers, and as people were still showering they were drilling holes in the wall in some of the adjoining cubicles. Now in the showers there are normally puddles of water going between cubicles and there is a trough which slants the water down towards the drains at each end, which run the length of the showers. On top of this there is all the steam from the showers themselves. All it would have taken was a bare wire on the extension or the drill, and anyone showering in there would have simultaneously been electrocuted. All they would have had to do was to ask people not to shower for ten minutes while they drilled and then removed their equipment.

Traffic report

With the snow about I’ve been listening to more local radio to try to catch weather and traffic reports in the car. Somehow, don’t ask how – I wouldn’t be able to replicate the actions and now I can’t get back to normal – I’ve managed to turn on the setting which interrupts what you are listening to with any traffic reports which may be transmitted. This happens whether I’m listening to another station or with my CD playing. I get a beep then the report kicks in. The radio station ident shows up on the display, then when it’s finished it goes back to the CD or previous station I was listening to. This is all well and good except there is usually some kind of a hand over with the traffic news reporter and the DJ who’s show it is. Sometimes it can go on for a good five or ten minutes, so I end up hitting the button to put the CD back on manually. Something like:

“Tell me Fred do you like eighties music?”
“Not really…I can appreciate it in
a kind of kitsch fashion.”
“Well if you were a fan of eighties music you
would love the next record…”

It’s always inane crap. I’m sure there should be some kind of broadcasting rule whereby they should hit their bleep and hand back to what I was listening to before the inane banter comes on. Otherwise they are hijacking your radio.
Please let me know if anyone does know if there is a rule for this and how I can report stations who go on for too long, way past the end of the traffic report.

Breakfast on the run

I pulled round a bus that was signalling to pull into the bus stop when a bloke who ran across the road in front of my car because he wanted the bus. He was carrying a piece of toast and even took a bite out of it as he was running in front of me. I thought to myself - What if he had choked on his bit of toast while he was running? Or how about if the police found him lying in the road with a piece of toast lodged in his windpipe? That would make a great case for the CSI.

Driving on the ice

The icy weather brings out the worst in a lot of motorists. This morning for example I was driving quite carefully because of the ice on the roads, then when I got to the first roundabout a Land Rover pulled out before me from the turning after mine. He then carried on driving fairly slowly along the straight stretch of road. Then as we were going up the hill towards the traffic lights, he saw they were green, and then sped off over the lights.
Other mornings I’ve seen people not bothered about clearing their cars of snow (just a little bit where the wipers go across the windscreen). Then when they get down to the first junction and have to look left and right before pulling out, they realise that they can’t wind their side window down, so they open up their car door to see what’s coming. The guy did that for turning left, but what’s he going to do if he has to turn right? Open his door and the passenger door?

Snow

So it's been snowing for a week or so on and off. All the councils have run out of grit for the roads and bus a train services were cancelled in some parts of the country.

Schools have been closed and parents have had to stay away from work to look after them. I remember when I was a kid having to still go to school. we were made to play outside in the ice, teachers hated having kids inside the school during breaks and dinnertime. I even remember the once having to walk all the way home in the snow when they decided to take the buses off the roads.

Stella

I had a rough stomach last Saturday. While I was in Sainsburys doing the weekly food shopping, I had to go and use their toilet facilities. However when I got in there, the first cubicle was out of order, and the second (and only other one) had a can of Stella Artois in the bowl, which I ha dto fish out (covering my hands with toilet paper as best I could) before I could do my business. Doesn't that go against all the advertising that you see for Stella? That the drinkers of Stella are quite refined?