Day 74 - Twitter

Twitter has changed the layout of their site! They've taken away one button, the 'me' button,  the very button I use most often. Now I only use twitter to advertise my writing but nonetheless  this change has greatly inconvenienced me. How dare they change this completely free to use  site, that gives me loads of free publicity. It makes me seethe that I, a non paying user, has to slightly change my habits. Twitter please change back or I will continue to use your site. 

Day 73 The Great British Bake Off.

This grumpy day  is sponsored by Extraordinary Rendition, the new novel from Gareth Davies. 
A tiny red warning for this grump and you might need to read it aloud to get the pun :-) 

Dear the BBC,

Congratulations on the success of your programme The Great British Bake Off. (TGBBO) As you know I am not a fan but credit where it is due it has been a roaring success.

However, I think you have missed a trick and this has been making me grumpy for a while now. So I am writing to you today to suggest a slight change to the programme that I believe could making it even more popular.

I notice that your other cookery programmes is called Masterchef and I also note that you have a programme in your schedules called Mastermind. So I wondered if you might consider renaming TGBBO to Masterbaker. I think this would give the show a different ring. I can imagine Mel and Sue welcoming the 12 Masterbakers to the kitchen, interviewing the masterbakers as they furiously masterbake, finding out all about their different masterbaking techniques. Imagine the drama as we think that one of the masterbakers masterpieces has gone soft. Imagine Mel and Sue announcing that the masterbakers are coming to a climax before finding a champion Masterbaker. I suppose I would feel sorry for those who have to clean up after 12 masterbakers have finished doing their thing.

I also think it would add to the value of the spin offs. Imagine the impact Masterbake Live would have, or Masterbake the professionals. Mind you in the light of Operation Yewtree I think I would avoid junior Masterbake.
I hope you consider this proposal and make a change for the better.

Cheers for now

Gareth

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Day 72 Buffalo Vings.

As has been previously noted my Czech is not as good as it shouldbe for someone who has been here for as long as I have, but that's the way it is and there's no changing it now. I do try, if I am in my comfort zone like a restaurant or a train ticket office then I will use Czech first and only fall back on English as a last resort. I can say já si dám smazeny syr prosim no problem at all. The issues arise when there is a word that is a loan word, a word that looks the same as it's English counterpart and means the same (so not a false friend) but is often pronounced differently. Take rum for example. It looks the same as the English on the menu but try saying it in an English accent and a Czech waiter will look at you like you've just spoken Chinese to them.
Last night I decided to order Buffalo wings, it was written on the menu in English. So I said já si dám Buffalo wings prosim. The waitress looked at me blankly, so I rephrased. I said Booffalo vings and felt like a right muppet. But that subtle change was all it took to get the desired nod from the waitress. 

Day 71 - Welcome to the SuperCity Pendolino

Dear Fellow Passenger,

Welcome aboard the SuperCity Pendolino between Prague and Ostrava. I hope you have a pleasant journey with us as indeed I hope I do too.

What would make my journey pleasant is if I am left in peace to do some work, some cyberslacking and maybe have some sleep. In fact I am sure that most people in this carriage would agree.

Therefore, I am writing to you to ask you to please cease and desist with your loud, supercilious conversations on your mobile phone. Now I know I haven’t chosen the quiet carriage so I have no right to insist on you shutting the bleep up, but maybe when your voice drowns out the train announcements it is a sign you are talking a little too loudly.

I don’t want to talk for others, but I am sure they would agree that we don’t need to know that you are not happy with the invoice you received and that you are not going to pay it until it is rewritten. We don’t want to know that you intend to tell all your friends and colleagues not to use the services of the poor person you are berating.  
I really don’t mind you talking on your phone, after all there are others speaking on theirs but somehow their voices are not reverberating around the carriage like a hum of a giant mosquito playing the kazoo.

If you don’t mind a little bit of feedback as well, then let me inform you that you are coming across as a little arrogant and paranoid to me, so god knows what the person you are speaking to you thinks of you.

So thank you in advance for taking the time to consider others for once in your self-centred little life and turning the volume down on your voice.

Enjoy the rest of your journey.
Gareth

Day 70 - That damn screen again.

Oh I’ve written about my addiction to my screen before but today I took it to extremes. I really think it might be time to get help, to see a specialist or to see a surgeon to have my screen surgically removed from my hand. Maybe the is a screenaholic anonymous that I could go to and say:

My name’s Gareth and I am addicted to the wait, I’ve just got to read this tweet, sorry where was I?  Oh Yes I am addicted to my screen. Let me just update my status with a photo of me saying that.

Today because my head was buried in my screen I managed to miss my stop to change trams, meaning I had to go home via a different, longer route.  When I did manage to tear myself away long enough on to get off one tram, I then got on the wrong one, luckily realising just in time. It wasn’t even as if I was reading anything interesting, just some facebook status updates about newborn babies and dogs who destroy homes.  

So I will get some help, I promise, just after I’ve finished one more game of Angry Birds. 

Day 69 I’ve never been so offended in my whole life.

The tram was crowded, hot and smelly. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that unless it is 30 degrees plus outside there is no chance that anyone will dare open a window. So we were left to breathe in other people’s body odour and halitosis. It was not going to be a pleasant journey. Suddenly the woman sitting in front of me looked up, gasped in shock and offered me her seat. She looked at me like it had been criminal that she should have been sitting down while I was standing up. Now I know I have a bit of a limp but she couldn’t see that, as I’d been standing on the tram for a while. I know I have grey hair and grey beard ... but I don’t look that old,  do I? But what made this charade worse was when I looked at the woman it was clear to me that this woman was clearly in her fifties, not her early fifties either. Thus she was at least ten years older than me. In fact she was close to the age group who have become my new admirers since losing weight.

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