Handbags and mad dads

I had a slight parental panic on Friday. Having spent Thursday night at Trump's, I'd not been in touch with Mother with regard to storm damage. I'd assumed that everything had been OK, since Connie hadn't phoned me in a panic to tell me that the shed had collapsed and that she needed me to come and hold it up for a few days while they emptied it. At about 11am on Friday, I decided to phone home to see what was what and whether my new mobile had been delivered (see below - if I remember) - the landline was dead and there was no answer from her mobile. Hrrrrm, odd, I thought.

After trying about ten more times, on both numbers, I started to worry: what if the house has burnt down and all records of my parents' contacts had been destroyed, so the police couldn't find anybody to contact? What if all that was left was the singed and stiffened body of Little Max? Oh my GOD! I'm an orphan!!!!!

I checked the BBC News website for stories of fatal fires in Salford - nothing. Then at 2pm, just as I was about to shut off my work PC and head home, I tried Mum's mobile one more time. After ten rings, she answered.

"Where have you been? I've been trying to phone you since this morning, the landline is dead and you weren't answering your mobile!"

"Well the phone is working, the hospital phoned for your dad this morning. And my phone was in my handbag, I've just taken it out."

"Didn't you see that there were 20 missed calls!? And why can't Dad learn to put the phone back on the hook properly? I've been worried, I thought Max had died in a fire! Did my new phone arrive?"

"Yes, it came at 9am."

"Good old Orange. See you later then, and check that phone upstairs!"



Orange five a day
I like my mobile phone operator, Orange. They're not the cheapest, the handset choice is limited, but they have fantastic customer service. I phoned up to enquire about an upgrade and a tariff switch the other day. After slagging off Samsung and Motorola, and having a general laugh with the adviser, I asked what phones they had available for upgrades and what I could have for free.

"Well, you could have this one, but they've all been recalled and they're out of stock. And this one is... oh, that's out of stock too, but I don't think we're getting any of those back. Errm, this one is nice, oh, it's out of stock. Honestly, we might as well be selling fruit and veg!"

"Oh right, well I only phoned up to enquire, I can try again in a few weeks."

"No, hang on, what about this one, it's a Sony Ericsson, very nice phone, lots of features, 3G, good camera. Oh, it'd cost you £50 though. Hang on, I'll just talk to our customer retention people to see if we can get it for free, won't be long."

various chart music...

"Hello, thanks for waiting, I've spoken to them and they're prepared to give it to for free because of what you said about leaving if you're made to pay for the handset. I'll just put you through now."

Bu'... I never said anything about leaving if I didn't get a handset for free... I was confused, then cottoned on to the fact that she was nudge-nudge, wink-winking me.

And there it was, delivered in less than 24hr. Nice one Orange! Let's just hope this departure from Nokia doesn't turn out to be as upsetting as when I tried a Samsung. Fucking horrible phones, absolute rubbish.



A photo
Here's one I took yesterday...

For fuck's sake, stay in the closet, you ugly bitch
Senior Labour politician, Ruth Kelly is a bit butch. And she's fuck ugly with it. She screams "I'm queer", but claims to be straight. She is married, has four children and probably doesn't believe in contraception because she is a Catholic. Nothing wrong with being a Catholic, until your fundamentalist (with the emphasis on mentalist) bigotry interferes with your position as "Communities Minister". This role means that Ruth Kelly has a duty to look after the interests of all sections of the community to ensure fairness, equality and all that. But Ruth Kelly is rumoured to oppose the recent bill to ban discrimination on the basis of sexuality.

I don't think Ruth Kelly is a very nice woman. I'm glad her Catholicism means that she has to hide her queerness. She can stay firmly in the closet alongside the rest of the bible-bashing queers who are so afraid of coming out that they hide their sexuality by apparently opposing it in others.