Court! Can I Get A Witness?

APPARENTLY it’s illegal to swing someone around by their eyelids just because they piss you off?!

Not that that’s why I was in Crown Court today.  No – despite my assorted skallywag behaviour over the years (on both sides of the legal fence), I was not in any danger of hearing those immortal words “Take him below!”.  Unless I’d have worn the tie I was planning on, anyway…

I had an Official Summons (“You’re nicked if you don’t”) to give a witness statement for the Prosecution.

Apparently this is a terrible thing to happen to you?  Most of my Cow-Orkers gave me their deepest sympathies, whilst I was a little bit excited to get to experience something new.  Not court.  I mean, the whole ‘taking the stand’ thing was all very good and stuff, but I was more looking forward to getting a hire car for the drive down… even if it was in London.

I hate London.  I’ve said before how when I was a biker courier I got the same sick dread if I was to be sent to London as I used to get at high school when I’d got double Maths and hadn’t done my homework…

*shudders*

The thought of someone FINALLY letting me loose in their car (despite me being used to 190mph and 1000hp per tonne on a bike, and having done more advanced driving training than almost everyone else I know) gave me a happy.  As it turned out, my request for a BMW wasn’t approved, but I did get a brand new Renault Clio Diesel BlahBlah Estate.

A great car for me, really – very easy to drive with loads of low-down grunt but not enough power to get me into much Trouble.  When I floored it it seemed like it was about to do something SPECTACULAR….. and then just sort-of went ‘Meh…’ and sat back down again without hitching it’s skirts up and proper legging it.

Loads of space and quite comfortable, but maybe a little too big for what I really need.  And out of my budget anyway… If I had the money I’d consider one, though!

Anyway, I guess you want the juicy stuff, not a review of a mediocre estate car, right?  Right!

I arrived and got through security then went to meet my contact who is a Police Officer in the case.  He made me sign the Witness Statement and then I went to wait in a special room for Prosecution Witnesses, which was attended by two lovely ladies who made me a cup of tea and explained what would happen and stuff.  I chatted a bit to the other witnesses, but we weren’t able to talk much about the case because, well, you’re not allowed to.

As this was all last minute stuff to me, all I know is that I’d confirmed that a person was not a solicitor, and that’s pretty much all I knew, and all I would have to say on the stand.  Someone’s been Naughty somewhere, and the Crown Prosecution Service were going to nail them.  I don’t really know how naughty, or if I was in danger of getting whacked before getting to the stand?  Either way that didn’t really bother me.  It’s not like I haven’t faced down the barrel of a gun in the course of my working day before now, so what more is there to fear?

It’s an ADVENTURE!!!

Although that is, admittedly, when you have a highly skilled team there to back you up.  I’d think it was pretty unlikely to happen for this trial, though?

Anyway, I waited around for a few hours, people started to get a bit excited as we were due to be called, with the likelihood of us having to attend the next four days or more…

And then I was released!

The Judge had accepted my sworn statement, and I was no longer needed.  It was a bit of a let-down, really.

I managed to blag a quick tour of an empty court room – just to see what it would have been like.  Judge Judy wasn’t anywhere in sight.

So I headed off to a local Thai Restaurant for a Pad Gar and a Thai Pancake with coconut icecream!

OM NOM NOM NOM!

But, wait!!!  A pancake is just flour, egg and milk, right?  WTF did they use to make this one GREEN???

Oh, and of course as I went to London, I bought a Heat magazine!

TalkTalk Rant

For those of you who aren’t familiar, TalkTalk are a broadband and home phone provider, and the ‘Rainbow Song’ that I keep referring to is this:

Again and again and again and again.  Just imagine how many times that song on a loop fits into 4 hours?  So here is the letter I’m sending in to them to resolve some issues:
– – – – – –
Dear TalkTalk,

Whilst generally I would say I am happy with the service I’ve received, having thought about it for a while, I am now wondering why.

For well over a year the connection has just become ‘expected’ to drop out on average two times per hour.  For the last few months, between the hours of 17:00 and 23:00 this can be expected to be ten times per hour… twenty times… sometimes much more.  I’m not entirely sure how this ever became acceptable?

Still, for the privilege of this service, it appears that the price plan which I am on hasn’t even existed for at least the last seven months.  It hasn’t existed because it has been replaced by one costing half the price.

Apparently, this isn’t worth actually mentioning to me, despite the initial contract I was tied to being over well before this.

On the number of times I’ve had to call your technical support because of total failures in internet connection, your staff have managed to remedy the problems and get me back connected to the dodgy service – obviously only for between 2 and 30 minutes at a time as usual.

Even better, during these phonecalls whilst waiting for several hours to speak to support, I’ve had the extreme ‘joy’ of discovering that TalkTalk has one, and only one song that they own the rights to.

Yes, this means I have spent approximately four hours of my life to date listening to some weak, soulless hippie singing that f**king ‘Rainbow’ song.

Over and over and over and over again.  The SAME b*stard song.

Whilst this may be just dandy from your point of view, to any customer actually having to sit through it, I can assure you that it is an experience which quickly induces a state of psychosis and depression during which I have often considered eating my own face to get it to stop.  The cat has recieved numerous murderous glances just for making a sound or being within my red-misted field of view as the phone speaker cracks as I’m again informed “There’ll be a rainbow” as the c*ck-nosed singer reaches the crescendo of the chorus.  Again.

Personally, I hated the song anyway, but I should imagine that ANYONE calling the TalkTalk technical support line, even the biggest fan of the Rainbow song in the world, would at the very least hate it with a passion afterwards.

Anyway, enough about the dreadful music.

What I propose is I leave TalkTalk and go to a broadband provider who can afford more than one song.  Actually, considering how much I have been overcharged as a long-term customer, it’s quite amazing that you don’t have the funding to spend on an 80s mix tape or something instead?

Alternatively, I propose that my price plan is changed to reflect every other TalkTalk customer (i.e. dropped to the regular lower price), and the additional months where I overpayed be credited to my account.

Also I would like an engineer to come out to check the TalkTalk line and equipment, and think it would be rather nice to have them swap my ‘g’ router for the far more functional ‘n’ type like all the top broadband providers supply.

Yours sincerely,

Nasty Evil Ninja

It’s The Little Things That Count – Fight To Hurt Them

When most people get into a fight, they’re trying to do one thing: smash you in the face with their fist so hard that it knocks your head off.  There’s rarely any more thought or skill involved than that.

This is fine if you’re a huge lummox, but if you’re unfortunate you may find that you’re the David and your opponent is the Goliath.

The chances are your little puny geek self won’t be able to take Goliaths head off with one almighty tomp – so what do you do?

You get sneaky.

Pressure points are all well and good if you have the skill (or luck!), but for most people they won’t work either because your opponent is freakily immune or because adrenalin dump has taken control and you now have all the motor skills as King Kong on ether.

So you need to hurt them or at least damage them enough that they stop pummeling you long enough for you to do your little girly run back to your Mum.

You’ll have heard before in my ‘How To Win Any Fight (without even hitting them!)’ blog about how to get your elbows up, and try to break their hands when they hit you.  If you haven’t read this blog – do it now!

If you want to be a bit more proactive then breaking their bones is always a good move to stop them wanting to hit you.  The nose is an easy target if you stop swinging big looping haymakers and fire off some open-handed hits (or punches, but you shouldn’t be using a closed fist, really – trust me, the info on that is in another blog) straight down the middle towards their face.

Some people will still come at you with their nose spread out like a squished butterfly, but it should slow them down enough to leg it away.

If you have a bit more skill then just as they step towards you, stamp on their shin/lower leg as they finish the step, and you can snap their leg.  Or stamp on their feet and toes – whack anywhere they have small bones and it’s easy to break them.  Punching the back of their hands is also good but requires much better timing.

If they’re getting in close them rake their eyes with your fingernails, or prod a bony digit into their eye socket.  Try and pull the eyeball out and the fight will go right out of them.

Testicles are an easy target, but as I’ve said before, if you give them a good smack most men will realise they’re going down and so try to murder you in the few seconds they have before the pain hits.  This is A Bad Thing.  Also don’t be shy to do the same to women – I have it on good authority that a ‘punt to the cunt’ is rather painful to the fairer sex, too!

And that’s it.  As ever – KEEP IT SIMPLE!  No fancy complicated moves – cause as much damage or pain as it takes to stop them and then get out of there!

Remember that it might take a 300lb hoofer to the head to knock out some people, but around 8lb of pressure in the right place on a small bone (nose, fingers, toes etc) will be enough to disable an attacker just as effectively.