Ridiculous language

I let myself down over the weekend. I swore at a Royal Bank of Scotland telephone operator. On the Saturday morning we got a statement through our door informing us the bank were billing us for a grand total of £58. We had inadvertantly fallen beyond our overdraft at the turn of the year. Our first time, and they are billing us now for this ridiculous amount of cash. Our money was one day late in going into the bill bank account. So, angry and frustrated, I told a Bank call centre lady that it was a 'bloody ridiculous' amount to charge. She responded in a haughty "I advise you to stop swearing at me". The best I could come up with in response was "bloody is not a swear word!" before hanging up. It's not good to blame these innocent call centre types for their employing company's corrupt methods but sometimes you just cannot help but lose the rag, and sometimes even the will to live. "I think you just need to control your finances a little better" the woman had said to me in the most patronising tone she could possibly muster. I would say the lady got off lightly with a mere 'bloody', wouldn't you? Banks are not to be trusted anyway. Especially the Royal Bank as it's certainly not the first time they've swiped money from my account through no fault of my own. These problems occur because of dates falling on bank holidays, weekends and such like, messing your financial schedule right up. Previous problems have also occured due to salaries being paid with rubber cheques, but that's another story. As it happens I have since discovered that for the same financial accident which befell us in January, Clydesdale Bank would have charged us £8 less and, best of all, Barclays bank would have only billed us £22. A good reason to leave the Royal Bank. Should we go through the hassle of changing the whole account though? It would involve at least ten different phonecalls to ten other different call centres to sort out the changes which could involve getting creative again with my insolent grammar. These call centre employees must be used to it though. It must be the worst job for putting up with disgruntled customers. Some, like the Royal Bank lady, are just asking for trouble though.
Around Christmas i phoned the Vigin tv line as our Digi box had suddenly decided to refrain from operating for longer than one minute at a time. After restarting the box, with the classic switch it off and back on again routine, I decided that we needed a technician so I picked up the phone. By the sound of her accent the lady on the other end of the line, with the distorted volume in conversation, sounded like she was also at the other end of the world. The background noises giving the impression she was up in one of Richard Branson's own hot air balloons. As she fired her gaseous flame up into her balloon and her basket struggled in the wind, the virgin lady warned me she was going to go through some steps with me. Rolling my eyes i informed her I had already restarted the box in an effort to remedy the problem but she insisted on taking me through these steps. After following her instructions running back and forth from the phone to the tv for around ten minutes I realised that she was basically taking me through the exact same steps I had put myself through. I was switching the box off and back on again. The only difference this time was that is was in an overly long, over complicated fashion whilst at the same time trying to understand each others words, through our different accents over the distorted phone line. Afterwards the call centre operative came to the same conclusion I had done fifteen minutes previously. We needed a technician. I kept my cool though and after the call had finished, rather shakily, placed the phone receiver back down on it's perch with only a loud sigh. Which is the calm, collected self that was missing on Saturday morning with the Bank.
Telling my family about the whole bank episode over dinner last night, my Gran nodded and agreed that my language had been getting worse. She noticed last week when I'd been in her house spouting about something that I'd "no idea where the hell it had come from?!" Again, I'm not sure if 'hell' is a swear word, but it was obviously enough to earn disapproval from my Gran. Something no one in the family enjoys.
Around ten minutes after the phonecall on Saturday morning I was racked with guilt and felt like phoning the lady up again and apologising for my 'bloody' language. Needless to say, I decided against it. I'll live with the guilt. That is until the next statement slides through the postbox, billing me for offensive phonecalls.

If I had a million dollars

Sun , rain, sun, rain, sun, rain. Evening. It's kind of confusing this Scottish summer. Usually when the sun comes out over Scotland people have one of two responses. Strip down to their bikini or continue to walk about wearing hats, jumpers and scarves and slowly die horribly in the sweltering heat. If I'm either one of them it would have to be the hats and scarves variety (as I don't own a bikini). Monday was by far the hottest day we'd had up here in ages and on my way up to the gym I noticed most folk were still walking about in their jumpers and jackets - even though the sun had been out, glaring down at Scotland, the whole day. Tuesday, however, we were back to rain and now, at the end of the week the weather doesn't know what the hell to do. Mum and Dad are away camping somewhere so I hope it's dry wherever they end up.
We completely missed this solar eclipse of the moon up here today, probably because of the afore mentioned rainclouds. Apparently Europe only witnessed a partial eclipse anyway but British astronomers caught some good shots which can be seen here on the BBC website (except from the one with the kids... and the dog - that's just silly). It was also in the papers today that they have found water on Mars. Which means the possibility that life was on Mars, even if it was millions of years ago. Mars could have had a whole other species of being long before the dinosaurs even rose up out of the ocean on this small, blue planet. The Phoenix space probe, which was sent down to the planet a few months back, dug under the planet's soil, the resulting samples of which were scanned by the orbiting Odyssey spacecraft. Science fiction this ain't. Either is the story on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic taking bookings for his suborbital flights into space for the pricely sum of $200,000 per customer/tourist. The first flights are expected to be as soon as the end of this year. Let's just hope they're a little more successful than his attempts at flying around the world on his balloon! Branson is cool. I like Branson. He's an extravagant billionaire whose not afraid of what his critics sneer. What other multi millionaires invest millions in flying tourists out into space? If I had a spare $200,000 I'd sign up! It must be the coolest thing - to see your own planet from space... All of us running about, living our little lives, working, breeding, eating, exercising, reading, driving, watching, playing, wondering about our weather, when the whole enormity of the universe moves around us. Just to go to the edge of our planet's atmosphere, a mere toe in the bathtub, and get the slightest hint of that would be mind blowing. Anyway, getting a bit deep there... sorry.
A Happy Birthday should go to Morgan who was the grand old age of four this weekend. Morgan is Ka's sister's daughter to whom I am known as Uncle Michael. The title is very strange to me as I've never been an 'Uncle' before and it makes me feel ancient. Thanks Morgan and hope you have a great party tomorrow, even though you won't be reading this... as you can't... yet. Hope it's a nice sunny day for you but at the same time - Mum and Dad, if your reading, remember to pack the brolleys.