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11th September 2013: The world's gone mad and I'm the only one who knows
13th August 2013: Black is white. Fact. End of.
11th August 2013: Electric cars, not as green as they're painted?
18th June 2013: Wrinklies unite, you have nothing to lose but your walking frames!
17th May 2013: Some actual FACTS about climate change (for a change) from actual scientists ...
10th May 2013: An article about that poison gas, carbon dioxide, and other scientific facts (not) ...
10th May 2013: We need to see past the sex and look at the crimes: is justice being served?
8th May 2013: So, who would you trust to treat your haemorrhoids, Theresa May?
8th May 2013: Why should citizens in the 21st Century fear the law so much?
30th April 2013: What the GOS says today, the rest of the world realises tomorrow ...
30th April 2013: You couldn't make it up, could you? Luckily you don't need to ...
29th April 2013: a vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE, because THE ABOVE are crap ...
28th April 2013: what goes around, comes around?
19th April 2013: everyone's a victim these days ...
10th April 2013: Thatcher is dead; long live Thatcher!
8th April 2013: Poor people are such a nuisance. Just give them loads of money and they'll go away ...
26th March 2013: Censorship is alive and well and coming for you ...
25th March 2013: Just do your job properly, is that too much to ask?
25th March 2013: So, what do you think caused your heterosexuality?
20th March 2013: Feminists - puritans, hypocrites or just plain stupid?
18th March 2013: How Nazi Germany paved the way for modern governance?
13th March 2013: Time we all grew up and lived in the real world ...
12th March 2013: Hindenburg crash mystery solved? - don't you believe it!
6th March 2013: Is this the real GOS?
5th March 2013: All that's wrong with taxes
25th February 2013: The self-seeking MP who is trying to bring Britain down ...
24th February 2013: Why can't newspapers just tell the truth?
22nd February 2013: Trial by jury - a radical proposal
13th February 2013: A little verse for two very old people ...
6th February 2013: It's not us after all, it's worms
6th February 2013: Now here's a powerful argument FOR gay marriage ...
4th February 2013: There's no such thing as equality because we're not all the same ...
28th January 2013: Global Warming isn't over - IT'S HIDING!
25th January 2013: Global Warmers: mad, bad and dangerous to know ...
25th January 2013: Bullying ego-trippers, not animal lovers ...
19th January 2013: We STILL haven't got our heads straight about gays ...
16th January 2013: Bullying ego-trippers, not animal lovers ...
11th January 2013: What it's like being English ...
7th January 2013: Bleat, bleat, if it saves the life of just one child ...
7th January 2013: How best to put it? 'Up yours, Argentina'?
7th January 2013: Chucking even more of other people's money around ...
6th January 2013: Chucking other people's money around ...
30th December 2012: The BBC is just crap, basically ...
30th December 2012: We mourn the passing of a genuine Grumpy Old Sod ...
30th December 2012: How an official body sets out to ruin Christmas ...
16th December 2012: Why should we pardon Alan Turing when he did nothing wrong?
15th December 2012: When will social workers face up to their REAL responsibility?
15th December 2012: Unfair trading by a firm in Bognor Regis ...
14th December 2012: Now the company that sells your data is pretending to act as watchdog ...
7th December 2012: There's a war between cars and bikes, apparently, and  most of us never noticed!
26th November 2012: The bottom line - social workers are just plain stupid ...
20th November 2012: So, David Eyke was right all along, then?
15th November 2012: MPs don't mind dishing it out, but when it's them in the firing line ...
14th November 2012: The BBC has a policy, it seems, about which truths it wants to tell ...
12th November 2012: Big Brother, coming to a school near you ...
9th November 2012: Yet another celebrity who thinks, like Jimmy Saville, that he can behave just as he likes because he's famous ...
5th November 2012: Whose roads are they, anyway? After all, we paid for them ...
7th May 2012: How politicians could end droughts at a stroke if they chose ...
6th May 2012: The BBC, still determined to keep us in a fog of ignorance ...
2nd May 2012: A sense of proportion lacking?
24th April 2012: Told you so, told you so, told you so ...
15th April 2012: Aah, sweet ickle polar bears in danger, aah ...
15th April 2012: An open letter to Anglian Water ...
30th March 2012: Now they want to cure us if we don't believe their lies ...
28th February 2012: Just how useful is a degree? Not very.
27th February 2012: ... so many ways to die ...
15th February 2012: DO go to Jamaica because you definitely WON'T get murdered with a machete. Ms Fox says so ...
31st January 2012: We don't make anything any more
27th January 2012: There's always a word for it, they say, and if there isn't we'll invent one
26th January 2012: Literary criticism on GOS? How posh!
12th December 2011: Plain speaking by a scientist about the global warming fraud
9th December 2011: Who trusts scientists? Apart from the BBC, of course?
7th December 2011: All in all, not a good week for British justice ...
9th November 2011: Well what d'you know, the law really IS a bit of an ass ...

 

 
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This titillating little tale lifted from the august pages of your favourite news organ and ours, the D**ly M**l. Whatever would we do without it?
 

 
A university professor who got off his train one stop before his final destination was stunned when he was asked to pay £155 to leave the station.
 
Martyn Evans was told he would have to pay up after leaving the train at Darlington, near his home, rather than wait until Durham where he works at the university’s philosophy department. Prof. Evans had bought three advanced first-class singles from train firm, East Coast, to cover his journey from Durham to London, on to Birmingham and back to Durham.
 
As it was approaching 8pm as he arrived in the North-East, he decided to disembark one stop early to go home to Hurworth near Darlington.
 
However, when he tried to leave the station, the automatic barrier would not let him through.
 
Station staff said his ticket was invalid because he had left the train too early, and was told he would have to pay some £155 - the price of the same ticket from Birmingham to Darlington.
 
Instead, he signed an invoice and asked to pay the ticket later.
 

A train

 
Prof.Evans said: 'Like most people, it did not enter my mind that I was in default of the terms and conditions by getting off the train early. Anyone would understand that you’d be liable to pay extra if you stayed on the train too long. But by getting off early you are not even using all of the product that you’ve paid for. The whole process made me feel like a wrongdoer from the beginning and that disgusted me more than just the money itself. It’s absolute madness - no-one would anticipate you’d be at fault for getting off too early.'
 
Alexandra Woodsworth, Public Transport Campaigner at Campaign for Better Transport, said: 'The Government has promised us fair rail fares, but being charged excessively for getting off a stop early doesn’t seem like a fair deal. Passengers need greater flexibility if they are to choose the train over driving or flying, and information about ticket restrictions need to be made much clearer.'
 
Since the issue was highlighted, train company East Coast have now cancelled the fee as a 'goodwill gesture' - though defended its stance by saying that the policy was standard across the industry. A spokesman for East Coast said: 'The terms and conditions of the Advanced Purchase First Class ticket - the ticket which Professor Evans had used for his journey - clearly state that breaking a journey en route, or starting from an intermediate station is not permitted.
 
'We have contacted Professor Evans to discuss this with him and, as we accept this was a genuine mistake on his behalf, we have cancelled the excess fare he was charged on this occasion as a gesture of goodwill.'

 
We think it would be really nice, and might save a lot of arguments later, if employees of the railway company could learn to speak English. To the nice East Coast spokesman we'd like to say: “Prof.Evans didn't start his journey from an intermediate station. He ended it at an intermediate station. Starting and ending are not the same thing.
 
“Also, he did not break his journey. When you break your journey, you get off halfway, go to a restaurant, pub, drug den, prostitute, Anabaptist Revival meeting or what have you, and then get on a later train to continue your journey. Prof.Evans didn't break his journey, he ended it. Again, there is quite a difference between breaking and ending. If we come round with a couple of baseball bats and break both your legs before ending your miserable, ignorant life, do you think that might clarify the distinction?
 
Probably not.”
 
And for anyone out there who genuinely can't see what the railway company did that was so wrong (that's about half the readers of the D**ly M**l, to judge from the website comments), we present this amusing little scenario ...
 

 
“Good evening, sir. Welcome to Dirty Dick's Roadside Café. What can I get you?”
 
“Erm ... let's see ... I'd like sausage, egg, bacon, tomato and chips, please. And a cup of tea.”
 
“Certainly sir. That's sausage, egg, bacon, tomato and chips, and a cup of tea. Would you like Earl Grey, or perhaps something more exotic? We have some delightful mint tea, for instance, or a china tea infused with a delicate hint of ginger? Or how about red bush?”
 
“No thanks, just ordinary builders' tea, please.”
 
(Sniffs disdainfully). “Very good, sir. Did you pick up a tray, sir?”
 
“Er, no ... I ...”
 
“No matter, sir. There's one here ..”
 
“Thanks.”
 
“Now, here we are, sir. Be very careful, the plate's hot. Sausage, egg, bacon, tomato and chips ... and here's your tea. That'll be £5.89 altogether, please ... that's lovely, thanks very much ... and here's your change. Bon appetit, sir!”
 
*****
 
“Sir! Sir! Excuse me, sir! I'm sorry, but aren't you forgetting something?”
 
“What? I don't think so ... let's see, wallet, briefcase, light summer waterproof ... no, I think I've got everything, thanks!”
 
“No sir, I think you've forgotten the bill?”
 
“Bill? Of course I haven't. I paid you when I collected my food at the counter, don't you remember? £5.89, it was. See, here's the receipt!”
 
“Ah, but sir, that was for sausage, egg, bacon, tomato and chips with a cup of tea, wasn't it? But that isn't what you actually ate, was it? See – there on the table! You didn't eat the tomato!”
 
“So what? I didn't like the taste. What about it?”
 
“Well, sir, you asked for sausage, egg, bacon, tomato and chips, and that's what we supplied. We formed a contract, as it were, between us: we would supply sausage, egg, bacon, tomato and chips and a cup of tea, and you would pay us £5.89.”
 
“Yes, and so I did. What the hell are you on about?”
 
“Well, sir, what you actually ate was not the meal contracted for, was it? What you actually ate was sausage, egg, bacon and chips. That's a different meal entirely. And sausage, egg, bacon and chips costs £4.50. So, as you've eaten sausage, egg, bacon and chips, would you mind paying us £4.50, otherwise I shall have to call the police?”
 
“Bugger off, you cock! I'm not paying you a penny piece more! Now get out of my way, I've got an appointment!”
 
“I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. I'm afraid I can't allow you to leave the café until you've paid us what you owe. See, my two hefty colleagues are standing by, just in case. You ate a meal, and you haven't paid for it. And by the way, I was kidding about the police. I've already called them. Listen! Here they are now, can you hear them? Such a merry sound, I always think ... nee-naw, nee-naw, nee-naw ....”

 

 
The GOS says: Jesus wept. As well He might.
 
What intrigues me about this story is that the good Professor seems to have been travelling first class. Presumably he wasn't paying his own fare but was on expenses. What's so bloody special about a professor that we have to spend public money wafting him around the country in first class? He's just a bloody teacher, for God's sake. Probably not a very good one, if my university days were anything to go by. Let him travel cattle-class like the rest of us! It's not as if he even teaches a proper subject.
 
Oh, and one more thing. A man was arrested today because he (allegedly) locked his front door and wouldn't let a gas-fitter leave because he hadn't finished the job. The owner of a small business was charged and convicted some months ago, because he did a citizen's arrest on an employee who'd robbed him and marched him through the streets with a label round his neck saying "Thief". Car-clampers have recently been prosecuted for clamping cars on private property and then demanding cash from the owners. The courts deemed that this amounts to "blackmail".
 
So how come the railway company thinks it's OK to imprison its passengers at the station, which is apparently what they did to the professor? And why didn't he (intelligent, educated etc. etc.) have the gumption to call the police himself and complain that he was being subjected to false imprisonment?
 

 
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