Three days running now our £161 per month train operator (South Eastern) has been running dire services in the morning. On Monday, Jo and I stood on the platform at the usual time of 7:30am waiting for the Cannon Street / Charing Cross train to arrive. By the number of disgruntled people on the platform, it was obvious a few trains had already been delayed or cancelled.

By 8am, 6 possible train times had been delayed, but not once was there an announcement explaining why the train was delayed or cancelled. Finally at 8:13am, we are told there was a problem in Swanscombe with a broken down train, and that there was no estimate as to when the train would arrive. (lovely innit?)

Today, we caught our trains on time, but it took 15 minutes to get to Dartford, a 2 mile trip that normally takes 5 minutes. Did the idiot driver come on air and explain to the passengers what was up? (Do bears fart in the forest)?

The journey time into Charing Cross is normally 40 minutes, and today it took an hour and a half. We must have stopped about 15 times along the way and not once did the driver come on air and explain the reason for the delay or all the stoppages. The very least I was expecting was some sort of an apology (as lame as that sounds) from the driver when we arrived at the station. (Not a peep from the bastard), and even more disturbing was the lack of apology from the Charing Cross station master. Normally they say something as well. Not today.

I bet if I didn’t pay for my ticket I would be quickly fined, yet South Eastern Trains can get away with such poor service.

Last week Friday we noticed our wheelie bin was missing. This is not unusual because the dustmen fetch the rubbish on Thursdays or Fridays and they tend to leave the bins along the pavement. But on closer inspection we discovered it had truly walked off and was no where to be seen. So we thought it must be those bloody neighbourhood kids at it again. Probably using it for whatever activities they get up too. But alas! How wrong we were?

I had a look at our CCTV and who would have thought the person below was the guilty party. We captured her on CCTV on Friday morning 00:09 walking up to the bin, grabbing hold of it and walking off. I plan to print this photo and leave it on the wall of out local supermarkets. That should get some attention I am sure.

Have you seen this fat, blonde, wheelie bin thief?

I bought a new PC a month ago from a well known online PC shop here is great britain (not so great at the moment). The demand for this particular PC was so massive, that they sold out in little under a week, and of course I was told I would have to wait until they got more PC’s in stock. So I waited, and waited and waited (3 long weeks went by), and the ****ers had already taken my money… Figures hey! Corrupt bastards!!!!

Finally I got told that it would be delivered today. So I made the effort, got up early and drove into work (well I drove to my wife’s workplace), where the PC was delivered. Got home, set it all up, only to discover the PC was in fact NOT the PC I had purchased. In fact it was a piece of shit, not even close to the spec computer that I paid good money for.

Me thinks, they did it delibrately, hoping an IT Genius like myself would not notice. Well you little ****ers I did, so there! You cheating corrupt son of mother gremlin eating a sack of  $!*£#ers!!!!!

So I’ve written them a not so polite ENOTE demanding my money back, and the very least they can do with their tails between their legs is send me the PC I ordered or ELSE!!!!!!

Online shopping - I just hate it when big name stores think they can rip us off!

This is very annoying. Why should we the poor consumer have to pay such ridiculous prices for petrol or diesel when the petrol companies (Esso, BP, Shell) are all making billions of pounds profit. It just doesn’t make any sense. The government should step in and say "No more price rises", but they won’t because they too are making billions on the increase of the oil price. Something has to be done before it’s too late. I rekon we need to NOT BUY PETROL FOR A WEEK. If you can hold out that long, it will cost the petrol companies millions and the government millions, and then hopefully they can bring the price down.

I got my car back from Skoda yesterday after they supposedly blew the engine. It’s going like a rocket now, well exactly the same as it was before I took it to them. (ha ha), trust me, stay well away from Skoda Sidcup… Everything they touch turns to broken.

So there I was driving back to the station when I decided to visit B&Q over at North Greenwich. I parked outside MacDonald’s and was in the shop for about 5 minutes, came back to the car and discovered some scumbag had keyed my car from the petrol cap to the front mirror.

I stood there looking at it in disbelief. I’ve only just paid off my last bit of vandalism to the car and now this… I just wonder what sort of person goes around keying cars? What is going through their peanut brains? Fortunately my car is not coated with metallic paint, because if it was it would have been a lot worse, but still it’s totally unnecessary. I just don’t understand the mentality of people who do these things.

What’s that headline all about? Well I’ll tell you.

I took my Skoda Vrs to the dealer yesterday to have my wing mirror replaced (*it got vandalised on New Years Eve - Great neighbourhood I live in). Skoda also had to replace a broken fog lamp and a recalled gear cable and various other minor niggles I have had since owning the car. Anyway, I get a call yesterday afternoon to tell me all is fine and that I owe them £100 for the excess. No problem there. I offer to pay, and then get told there is a problem. The garage mechanics noticed (lots of oil) under the car, and when they went to move the car out of the garage the turbo wasn’t working…. (yeah! right).

What I want to know is how the hell do you blow a turbo engine in a garage? And isn’t it amazingly lucky that it blew while it was in the garage under the careful trained eye of a skoda mechanic?

So basically we have a Courtesy Car for the next N days, as they cannot tell me when the engine/turbo will be replaced, which is not major because the car they gave us in return is a brand new (Skoda Octavia 2.x TDI). It has plenty of power and is very comfortable inside. I will be testing out it’s turbo just for the hell of it. Pity about the big white letters on the side of the car. I would have prefered FAST CAR - BEWARE!!!