BATH RACECOURSE, ROYAL CRESCENT RESTAURANT

LANSDOWN, BATH, SOMERSET

Entrance plus 3 Course Meal £119.00 p.p. Bottle of Taittanger £85.00

It’s been about two years since we last did this course and being at a loose end decided to try and get a restaurant booking the weekend before which normally is close to impossible as most courses seem to sell out, but with all the financial huffing and puffing and the raising of interest rates which doesn’t seem to be working by the way, it does look like people are going out less because we managed to get in here and at the Sandown meeting the next day. The course is quite nice and is one of the highest (altitude wise) in the country and for that reason they can’t actually water the course, though with the state of the water companies and the twats that run them I doubt it could be pumped this far as the only thing they seem able to make flow really well and without fail are bonuses and dividends which proves that shit don’t stick because it really does slide downhill proving Newton didn’t need an apple to fall on his head to prove gravity existed he could have just asked Thames Water. So with that the going here is usually good to firm and being a flat course they only run from April to October with a mix of day and evening racing.

It’s an easy run for us straight along the M4 westbound 72 miles and about 80 mins though actually getting the couple of miles to the M4 can take up to 25% of the journey, then there is a back road / shortcut once off the motorway which is pretty good but if the race meeting is busy you just end up kicking the can down the road as with most routes in the UK as it’s one single track road in and the same one out so if there’s a hold up which there usually is it’s because some dopey sod who’s not used to traffic ie driving in central London isn’t aggressive enough, or lacks the minerals to force their way into oncoming motorists and throw the finger at other drivers, you sit for hours waiting for a larger gap so said polite dodo can slowly turn into the car park while we all sit for ages shouting move you dick. Ok so generally it’s just me as the blond kicks off about my lack of patience and you people are all the same and any other Londoner who happens to have ventured further west than Ealing Common, they say patience is a virtue. “Bollocks”. To top it all that said short cut was closed for whatever reason and the detour took us down a single track road which after a mile or so was also closed, said workers had no idea about the route as they said highways put up the signs so turning round even in a Mini was more like a ten point turn, then an even bigger ball ache was meeting three others travelling towards us. So as they just sat there staring at me as if it’s my fault we’re going the opposite way, I got out and said road closed, is it why?, how or why the fuck would in know went through my mind but what came out was it’s possible for you to manoeuvre to the right so we can all shuffle past each other bit by bit then how you turn around is your problem. Obviously we found another route not marked diversion and slightly better than a farm track.

The racecourse wasn’t actually busy, no queues to turn in, car parking fairly empty and we set off on a sunny day to exit the car with a light drizzle which turned into a bloody monsoon for the day and 18c, so much for global warming and neither of us had a jacket, brilliant. For once the usual array of yellow jacketed parking dictators didn’t give us a hard time and we drove straight through them into hospitality parking which is just a smaller field nearer the entrance which was going to turn into a churned bog later on. Bath racecourse was first used in the early 1800’s and is about 4miles outside the city way up on a hill so the views are impressive but as the weather moved in we couldn’t see the far side of the course and the temp dropped, at the end of July ?, so welcome to global warming.

Welcome to the cheap seats or the older stand.

This was the best and clearest part of the day, once again showing the cheaper ticket area.

The restaurant has a grand name The Royal Crescent named after the famous Georgian piece of architecture in Bath built between 1767 and 1774 (could be a few years out )by John Wood the younger but ask anyone who John Wood the older, elder whatever did and I doubt you’d get an answer and the Georgians seemed to like these sort of titles though the buildings are seriously impressive and now seriously expensive because of what they are, unfortunately the restaurant doesn’t have the same sort of grandeur but they had to call it something. If interested have a look. http://www.thercs.co.uk or just type royalcrescent Bath and loads come up.

The restaurant is located on the first floor of a stand built 2016, the ground floor is a bar and the top is like a covered open bar doing burgers on a grill and various other foods and a bar so unless you’ve paid for the restaurant or the top bar the majority aren’t allowed entry. We arrived a good hour early despite the detours and it never amazes me as to what time some old codgers actually get here, what do they do queue waiting for the gates to open ? and they’ve already got through to deserts and it’s not even 1pm. It seems as if the catering outfit has also changed since we were last here and we both guessed it’s one of the bigger cheaper outfits obviously portrayed in the menus offerings. The standard so called artisan bread rolls were ok but had that slightly undercooked bleached look. We had the croquets which informed us was beef brisket, thank christ for that because neither of us would have had a clue except for it being some kind of deceased skinned cortisone injected animal. The celeriac was recognisable but they just got far to clever with the horseradish remoulade (absolutely no idea) and the roasted pepper coulis which I must admit added a bit of colour to the plate. All edible but not the greatest culinary experience. Again playing safe we plumped for the chicken, I know there was more in the title but let’s face it, it was a lump of chicken. As for the posh bits potato is potato, the crushed stuff that was the texture of something the chef and his clogs had danced on was again unrecognisable and I thought it was carrot don’t laugh it was orange type of colour (butternut squash), the veg was a skinny carrot and an anorexic leek. As for the liquid, sorry a white wine jus ?, well at least it was wet but even the chicken was unable to absorb it. As no cheese was available it was the sugar hit. The blond went for the panna cotta which surprised me when she asked “do you think it will have a wobble”. As I picked myself up off the floor laughing it was served in a small earthenware bowl and the jelly on top tasted of cucumber. Seeing as Pimms has cucumber fair enough but she thought someone had actually left out the Pimms and the panna cotta was more like a fluffy mouse missing the raspberry and which had turned the shortbread a bit soggy but it was pleasant enough. Yours truly had suburban chocolate sphere which looked impressive and the chocolate was fine but the chantilly crème was some whipped fluffy crème without the flavour of vanilla and thankfully no sugar. There was two caramelised bits but again not sure if hazelnuts were actually involved and the fresh berries was a singular berry but again it was fine. So as far as the meal goes you could eat it but boy it’s plain, but we think this is how most of the people we don’t mix with eat and what they perceive as good food as it’s recognisable, got fancy titles and won’t intimidate them by having to ask what it is. Food for ordinary folk.

Nicely worded and can fool a lot of people. Posh it ain’t.

So while eating between races I unfortunately had time to study the form which can make you look like you know what your doing but at the end of the day I’m still a prat, and after the 7 races I had one winner and sod all else which was one better than the blond sitting opposite me. I even speak to the trainers that we’ve had horses with about the form and to be honest most of the time they have about the same idea of its chance as I do. The view from the restaurant balcony is one of the best as yes you need binoculars it’s one of the rare courses where you can see the entire track unless you have a day like we had as by 3pm with the rain and cloud you couldn’t see the far side or the top bend so had to rely on the large screen and the commentary. Apart from arriving there was no way I was going outside so missed running my experienced keen eye over the runners in the parade ring, as if that would have made a difference but it’s fun to fool yourself.

Bar area in restaurant, the place is not bad at all

Really like the new stand, ground floor bar, 1st floor restaurant and top floor bar outdoor grill. It was sunny at home.

Top floor bar, couldn’t get in the ground floor bar as it was heaving with wet humanity.

Losing money didn’t matter as it was a great day and the racing was actually very good considering it was all class 6 which isn’t the best. I did turn into a hero as just before the last race I left to get her ladyship an umbrella from the car and returned drenched and will be awaiting payment for that for a long while. Tomorrow off to Sandown but I’ve written about that before and it’s our fav.

A MEAL BACK IN TIME

THE BULL INN

BISHAM, BERKSHIRE

£184.00 per couple incl glass of wine and bottle of Gevery Chambertin.

Well this was weird like stepping back 40 years into the past made interesting by the fact that we had no idea of what we were walking into. The village of Bisham is old and started life as a preceptory which is like a monastery for the Knights Templar or the medieval catholic equivalent of the Taliban. In that case we can blame the French seeing as King Stephen was a frog and his mother was the daughter of William the Conqueror if I remember correctly who were all religious nutters, and death to all in any gruesome way they could think of if you didn’t agree with the church at the time. As Bisham ends in ham that makes it a Saxon settlement as ham means homestead and it appears in the doomsday book as should this restaurant, anyway that’s the end of the history lesson as I’d have to look more up seeing as it’s been fifty decades since my last school history lessons.

The village is literally one street so blink and you miss it, there is a Manor House which I think was the abbey built around 14c but I’ve actually got no idea about it to be honest. So on one side of the street are a row of old terraced houses and on the other side a few more and the building known as the Bull Inn.

Not the most attractive of buildings as I don’t think much of the original look is left, especially the awful awnings and the door. Apparently it was a pub for 600 years

Cottages opposite more attractive than the Bull built early 19c

They do say that Henry VIII and Elizabeth 1st visited here and I’m sure that the inside decor hasn’t changed since then along with some of the menu. On entering its what you expect from something this old full of original brickwork and black beams and having small leaded light windows make it pretty dark or what some deep meaningful characters call atmospheric. Our table wasn’t ready as they were busy but neither of us were bothered and we stepped down into a kind of bar area which had one of those heavy patterned carpets that haven’t been made since early Victoriana but had a quality to it. The seating area and stools were fitted out in a red felt like material and small dark oak tables which fitted well with the medieval theme even though there wasn’t one. I sat facing a rather strange looking bar with a stone lions head hanging out of it and I began to wonder if it was about to spurt water from its mouth i didn’t notice any kind of receptacle to catch it in so that didn’t work then. Off to the side of that was a built in glass cabinet with a few wine bottles in which being into it I just had to have a look at. Must admit i was very surprised at what they were, old top class Bordeaux’s from the 80’ Pichón Llande Ch Lascombes to name two, and on the list these wines ranged from £250- £750, they even had a Louis Roderer Cristal 83 for £550 which to be honest for restaurant prices is very good. Reading the rest of the list it seemed obvious that these were either bought when they took the place over (which was early 80’s) or were the previous owners stock as they surely aren’t into wine. The couple of burgundy wines were just village names with no producer which is seriously important from this area and there was also a fair splattering of Spanish wines and looking at the menu we guessed that the owners are Spanish which they are. We had read about the waiters being Italian and guess what you idiots from Trip Advisor I can guarantee they ain’t as they told us they are Dons and we actually had conversations with them in Spanish.

I guess it’s the original site of the bar with some amazing wines.

The staff are lovely, all dressed in black with waistcoats and bow ties a real throw back to the 50’s possibly, very friendly and helpful in fact we didn’t ask but I’ve wondered if the three guys were sons or family members. Very quickly it became obvious that most of the diners actually knew the staff and were regulars and also most were nearly as old as the building itself. The menu is very extensive with a Spanish influence thrown in as they had paella, jamón Serrano and gambas ajilo to name a couple of trad dishes, this came along side various Sunday roasts and other dishes. God knows when I last saw Chicken Kiev on a menu or a Rossini steak job, time sure has stood still here.

On the starters we saw some pizza bread and thought ok, what actually came out was a piece of toasted baguette with some melted cheese and an anchovy draped across the top, not what we expected but it was fine. The Jamon Serrano wasn’t actually the sliced off the air dried leg but some sort of packaged process stuff and not that good, but draped across the anchovy cheese bread it was fine. Gambas Ajilo I’ve always had served and still cooking in a clay skillet with a couple of small powerful chillis and sliced garlic, this came ready cooked in a tomato garlic sauce. The prawns were well cooked and still tender and the sauce was actually very good so maybe this is done for what was an old English pállate. The main course that stood out for me was the 500g rib eye which I wanted medium rare and so it was, the veg was served to you with cauliflower cheese, broccoli carrots, potatoes, my steak also came with mushrooms and tomato. H got stuck into the steak and kidney pie which was more like a pastry crust, but it was light and airy and possibly enough for two. Our last and final surprise was the good old desert trolley which must be worth a fortune on antique roadshow as the last time I saw one of those I must of just been coming off breast milk in 1956. Yes it was loaded with the old favourites, crème caramel, lemon meringue, profiteroles, cheesecake a few other last Millenium jobs and a tiramisu. Once again all soft gummy numbers that are completely suckable for the denture impaired punters.

If you ever go here the food is not going to blow you away but the chef can cook fish and meat as we had no complaints about the cooking as such and I can guarantee that there is going to be no chance in hell that you will come away hungry. The waiters are brilliant with the customers and they were with us and I must say impressed with our Spanish. We have had this kind of service and eaten in strangely similar places in the Spanish outback and I suppose it goes with the old saying if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Thought the curtains gave it that modern feel with the inset spots.

Wherever you look the theme just doesn’t change. By 3pm most had gone for an afternoon nap.

WALLACE & GROMIT GRAND DAY OUT

CRAB SHACK

2 MARINE PARADE

WORTHING, WEST SUSSEX

£142.00 for two including 2 Riojas, water and a beer

Living like a hermit has done wonders for the bank balance due to the total financial fuck up the country is in but the situation is sending both of us a bit cabin crazy and if you can call a day out the races in a hell hole called Great Yarmouth last week, well your a better person than I am because honestly nailing your scrotum to the wall would be more pleasurable than spending time in this so called sea side resort in the arse of a county called East Anglia which Boudecia and the Icini tribe would have been welcome to as it hasn’t changed since 61 AD when she was running around pissing of the Romans and it’s not worth writing about.

Actually read about this place in the Sunday Times which can be a bit dodgy because as you read some of these journalistic master pieces it’s so bloody obvious that said writer has gleaned all the info from the net and not actually been anywhere near the place. Regardless I clicked onto the Crab Shack web site and straight into the menu which actually sold it to us regardless of what said journo prattled on about. I then checked out for a laugh Trip (crap) Advisor and read the terrible, poor reviews where I then check where these people have been previously so you know who to reject as a prat because it’s expensive or they didn’t get fawned over by the staff and waited longer than five minutes for the food, or find someone who eats and goes to places we would frequent which gives you a much better idea of the place and that there actually into the food on the plate and not the decor.

I ask myself how 73 miles can take over two hours.

As to that statement some of our roads in the countryside maybe named as A roads but are little better than single lanes which was probably fine pre world war 1 and pass through many villages with 30 mph speed limits plus there’s the added bonus of road works which are never actually fixing road surfaces even though we now drive on roads worse than a few third world countries I’ve driven in but what they actually do digging them up is anybody’s guess, it never seems to improve anything. Still avoiding the motorways was a nice relaxing drive as not a lot were out and about and the weather was pretty good.

This was my first time to Worthing and I must admit that I wasn’t expecting a lot, just a load of Victorian / Edwardian buildings facing the sea all turned into some sort of guest house decorated by your great grand parents (that puts it around 1860’s for us) or dodgy hotels and I wasn’t disappointed. Driving into Worthing was just like all other old resorts on this coast full of 1950’s semis and loads of bungalows which means you just know for a fact it’s going to be full of old people waiting for God, and it was. Got to admit I don’t know what a West Sussex accent is like but I guess it’s a bit farmer Giles but here all I heard was London accents ( bit like me then) all retired down to the coast, why I have no idea but maybe a burial at sea is cheaper.

Parked really easily which surprised me and only a two minute walk to the sea front and restaurant. Bit windy down there and the beach was deserted but then again it’s made up of what people call shingle I thought it was more like fist sized boulders so really can’t imagine why anybody in their right mind would want to sit on that or even look at it.

One wind swept blond trying to enjoy a crappy English sea front. Never did find out what the danger keep off sign in the background was all about.

The restaurant isn’t actually a shack as it’s housed on the ground floor of a Victorian house not one of our architectural gems but then again Victoriana wasn’t known for its beauty or subtlety so obviously I was born in the wrong period. We could only book an outside table on the day and as it’s covered by a large tent like canopy I thought ok why not. Sitting outside was fine but Jesus it was really windy and I was glad the canopy was attached by sturdy looking eyelets set into blocks of concrete but it worked really well. I did consider going back to the car for a jacket as I’m obviously not as hard as I thought, and being a clement weather softie but one of the staff offered us a spare table inside which was more comfortable so full marks to the waitress recognising the wimpey bloke in a T-shirt.

Looks like it could be possible to park your camel out front

It says beach bar but to me that implies sand and actually on the beach but this is England

The printed menu was interesting and H started with cockle and shrimp popcorn with incredible fresh ingredients which came in what seemed like a bottomless tin can and a nice fresh lemon mayo. These did get a bit one dimensional but as I had the Pili Pili prawns with Chorizo dipping them in my sauce livened the last few mouthfuls up. The chalk board specials were what we wanted and they had fresh Lobster weighing 500 grams at £45.00 so it had to be one of those each but we were a little bit worried about not knowing if the kitchen could produce a cooked Lobster without turning it into a chewy mess. No worries here they were perfect sweet and succulent and I enjoyed making a complete mess cracking the claws open which were fabulous, found it very strange that we didn’t see anyone else eating Lobster.

Could have eaten all of this

The place is actually fitted out like a shack with the walls either in bare brick or covered in coarse planking making it look like one of those beach places but with a nice feel and slightly rickety looking tables and chairs all very good fun. As expected nearly everyone was beyond old age pensioner level and a bit rickety themselves but fish doesn’t take a lot of gumming to death plus all the deserts were of the soft variety and not too sticky so safe bet no one’s going to loose their false teeth during lunch. Got a couple of inside photos but it was totally impossible not to get a gum sucker in the photo.

Oh shit !!! One day this could be us. Kill me now.

Maybe there’s an undertakers next door ?.

So apart from not seeing the coach that dropped the old people off the place was pretty good for a stab in the dark and if I actually popped my clogs here after I’d eaten a great Lobster I’d be thinking I’ve no complaints while someone nails down the lid. As for the town, well you can keep it. We took a quick stroll along the sea front but realised that after 100 yards there really was no point after clocking what looked like the usual semi derelict pier and the boulders didn’t look any better further up.

ANOTHER SLASH MY WRISTS MOMENT

A SIMPLE REQUEST TO BRITISH GAS

I have no idea how other countries work when you have to contact for example a utilities company or a bank to discuss what the majority of people think is a simple operation that is so uncomplicated and should take a few minutes of your time. Most of these outfits in the UK must be run or set up by ex primary school teachers as we are treated as if we have the mental capacity of a five year old who is more stupid than a demented puppy. Now there are people out there who are short of the usual full quota of bells and whistles to make a complete sensible human being and can simply shrug this sort of thing off as an everyday occurrence but not me and this is a real life’s a pain level 10.

It is now twice that I have had to contact British Gas as our contract was coming to an end and being normal I thought I’d give them a weeks notice that I would be leaving so paper work etc could be sent to me, so phone call number 1 went like this.

Usual automated stuff press and select 5 different options but not one actually exists for cancelling your contract so let’s pick number 3 and Business, speak or use the touch keys on your phone, please say or type your account number. So I spoke, sorry this is not recognised so the whole procedure starts again. This time I type it in. Next up first line of your address which can only be listed by speaking. I’m sorry i didn’t understand that, what is the first line of your address, this worked after the third attempt. Next, what is your postcode, that worked first time. Next what is your name, only three attempts at this before thank you for waiting for the next representative. This has taken twenty minutes and I now have some bloody awful tune sounding like something from the late sixties and played on Rolf Harris’s stupid xylophone. The waiting time for a representative is 24 minutes. Really. Jesus Christ I’ll go shave, shit and shower then. 31 minutes 18 seconds later I get a human or at least a semi human who is probably sitting at home somewhere in Thailand or the Philippines. Hello sir my name is Peter, no it bloody isn’t because your name has far to many consonants and not enough vowels for any sane English person to pronounce, so it may be possible though I doubt it that you may just may be able to help me today but with that accent?. So I explain my needs and then have to give all the info I’ve previously entered but once again half of it has to be done more than once because this bloke ain’t a Brit of any sort and English sure isn’t his first language as I now have to speak loudly and slowly for him to understand repeating myself four or five times. I have now been on the phone for one hour and have just finished my so called security checks before I get this from him “how I now help”, with English this good I’m going to be here a while longer I thought.

Once again I explain everything again, mainly that we wish to cancel which I probably made more difficult by saying we don’t want to renew this contract. Silence for twenty seconds which is a while on the phone just try it to see what I mean. Reply was “you what”, I wish to cancel, “why you do this ? What you want. After a further ten minutes of explanations that I’m not paying double it was plainly obvious that whoever or whatever I was talking to did not have the answer on his pre written script and it turned out he not do business contracts, he not do speaking English either, so I hung up.

Finding another number to dial I went through the previous bullshit and got someone in the UK just because I though being clever I’d try new contracts, and yes that’s handled in this country but no they can’t help me so I’m transferred this time to South Africa. Unfortunately I get a South African who is not a native of said country but an Indian who also has a thick accent and cant actually hear me but she is very clear this end even if I’m only understanding every third word. This has now taken another 75 minutes and even though I have a resting heart rate of around 56 bpm and low blood pressure of 110/68 I again had to hang up before I suffered another cardiac arrest which previously and funnily enough was not caused by calling British Gas.

Now I was on the web site and had seen live chat, so thinking it might just be a person on the other end rather than some automated bot I started typing. How stupid am I, it’s a bot that can’t actually help at all and keeps asking pointless questions with myself and said computer going around in circles. With another bright idea I now kept typing bollocks at every prompt which it told me it didn’t recognise neither did it understand round objects so back to bollocks and after six attempts it told me that a representative will be with me in around the standard wait of twenty minutes. Over two hours of my life has now passed me by and it’s now 11.30am and I can hear a bottle of 15 year old malt whisky calling me, would consuming the entire bottle calm me down, would I be able to converse with whoever on the other end of my fibre optic line, bollocks I’ll have a double. This with the hypnotic affect of a blinking cursor and a lot longer than 20 mins I have someone called Helen, is she English and if not I hope she can type better than this lot speak. Once again I explain everything and receive answers that this is not possible for her to do as she doesn’t do business contracts and how can she help. What !!!, how in hells name can you help if you know nothing about my actual problem. Answer to that is she can put me through to the people I’ve already spoken to, heaven help me I really didn’t want to die this way.

Finally just shy of another 90 mins I got sorted and cancelled and the paper work will now take two weeks instead of the one day I was originally told so god knows where that will come from and I guess it’s 50/50 that I’ll even get it. Soso looking forward to having to chase this up as with me faith is in short supply.

MAN IN THE STREETS VIEWS

What with the cost of living spiralling out of control we have decided to cut back on our excessive lifestyle and live like hermits for a while, so for you poor people who read my ramblings you may have a more difficult time working out how the hell this blokes mind works. So what exactly has wound this idiot up this week, well in fact it’s two things, no it’s not it’s hundreds, but none of which our exalted government have done sod all about because they are so busy bitching about each other or what Boris the blob did as if anyone gives a toss.

So number one to piss me off is this headline

British Gas owner reports record profits of £3.3bn amid energy crisis, more than triple the £1.04 billion it made the year before.

We have a business account with these bastards which is up for renewal 1st July and at the moment we pay 12.947 pence per kilowatt hour and 60 pence per day standing charge (whatever that is) and that’s during the past year when Vladimir Shitcan (pootin) screwed Western Europe because we’re so interested in over running his bloody country, unfortunately for him most of us are more interested in which underpants to wear today than sodding Russia and it’s imagined problems. Anyway the gas people have offered us a new fantastic contract which includes a 7% discount on direct debit and 10% on line discount. That all sounds hunky dory and lets all dance around with joy, but the catch is it’s doubled to 22.400 pence pkh plus 102.50 standing charge per day fixed for one year. Or for a real bargain 2 years fixed at 23.579 pkh plus 107.90 per day standing charge. That’s got all the boring stuff out the way and even though energy prices are decreasing and the conservatives are leaping up and down about how well they’ve done I still have to sus out exactly what their efforts were, my question is why have the prices I’m quoted doubled ? Explain to me I’m stupid, £3.3billion profit ?, excuse me but fucking hell why do you expect me to pay double and don’t give me that old flannel about oh when we bought what your using now it cost more. No shit Sherlock and you still walk away with a few suitcases full of dosh and a CEO earning £790,000 per annum so this increase wouldn’t exactly make a dent in his pay packet even if he’s turned down his £1mill bonus because of customers hardships. We’re a small business so just where are we supposed to find that sort of increase from ?, we just can’t trim anything else from our costs. I have no idea who or what the energy minister is or if we even have one they all look like they all are auditioning for the Muppet show anyway, so what is his say on the matter, that’s if he or she has one, sorry not politically correct there as they can be an it or maybe a thing, be whatever you want I don’t give a monkeys just do the job and I won’t just call or class you as a dickhead. Or he she tit or whoever they could always ask an advisor, these characters seem to be in a vast abundance and are generally some arse kissing ex university type who go straight into the old boys network called the civil service, never have a proper job and advise clueless ministers we actually voted for who then employ dozens of these so called advisors because I guess they actually have less idea of what’s going on than these kids, so if you can’t do the job bugger off and screw someone else’s life up. The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt (no that’s not a typo on his surname but he is if you get my drift) says we can’t offer help as this fuels inflation. That’s fine but it doesn’t affect your life does it Jez old mate.

So onto that part called inflation. The Bank of England who are not controlled by the government (would that make a difference) keep hiking the rates up putting pressure on homeowners many who are now paying double the interest rate for their mortgages. Guess what Einstein they all want and need more money which the government say you can’t have so they strike and bugger all works for a time until the next strike. People are struggling and we’re like a third world country with food banks and all other help being set up by independent neighbourhood groups who have nothing to do with our rulers, so pay increases are awarded and guess what inflation goes up. They blame food and energy prices but what exactly can anyone do about that ? freeze or starve it’s not like you can go without either. The supermarkets are as bad as the energy outfits in that all their prices go up because of so called production costs but still post year on profits then say we’re down on our yearly profit growth, so you’re still making more than last year and that’s still up on most of us poor suckers.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a leftie but this lot have been useless and hearing our head honcho telling us he feels our pain and this from a bloke who along with his wife are worth north of £750 million doesn’t actually register with the voting public, and that goes along with the rest of the multi millionaires that make up the cabinet. Now the big idea is to cut enough borrowing but let’s call that services so they can all offer us a tax cut of what a penny or two. Oh please get a grip on life, who gives a monkeys about that when all the indirect taxes rise in sneaky ways and they can say look what we did, we’ll round objects to that mate. The opposition are just as bad, they come out with all the things we want to hear and they can magically fix the world but say nothing about how they can achieve it, instead they just bitch about the lot in power, but this works both ways and that’s about it, a bitching school yard argument that gets us nowhere in fact I’ve seen more grown up Punch and Judy shows than this.

So this week interest rates have risen again but no worries our leaders tell us we’re so committed to correcting this and we’re on track to get this sorted. Meanwhile Thames Water is going down the tubes after paying shareholders who are some foreign pension outfit and the CEO’s tens of millions to fuck it all up, inflation has risen along with other assorted shit that you can’t do without, and they wonder why were pissed off. Their answer is usually let’s have an enquiry into what went wrong ( read we fucked up again) spend millions of public money on lawyers, get some bloke called a Lord to write 500 odd pages of waffle that takes bloody years to produce that no one reads because we’ve all lost interest and start all over again. Brilliant live die repeat.