This morning has already been a whirlwind of emotions. Firstly a council tax court summons because we are a few days late with our payment did nothing but incite anger. Haringey council has a brilliant scheme whereby they send you a threatening letter, you call to respond, you’re told all the operators are too busy and promptly they hang up on you. You try again, the same thing happens and after a week of calling several times a day in all possible hours you give up and they send you a more threatening letter wondering why you haven’t called them. I’m almost certain this is an invoke devised by the council to get more money and their call centre is nothing more than an empty room with a ringing phone in it, attached to an answer phone that’s constantly on, and a large rotweiler chained to a wall barking at it every time it rings. The dog is important. It represents Haringey’s attitude towards its residents. I always enjoy entering my borough via road after a long trip. Usually as I drive around the country there are large signs says ‘Didbury welcomes you’ or ‘Welcome to the city of Brighton’, similarly all over London the boroughs’ signs have some form of greeting. Not Haringey. Haringey’s sign merely says ‘London Borough of Haringey’. Its a statement. You have entered. Well fucking done. Now pay extortionate rates for no reasonable service.
A quick and rather angry email was fired back which made me feel a good deal better, but this was counteracted by an ‘out of office’ reply for the whole of the Haringey Council council tax department saying they’d get back to me in 5 days. Again, I’m sure the email is on a computer in a room with constantly flickering screen, a door locked from the inside and some sort of roadkill just festering in the corner. Everytime a new employee asks what’s in the room, they are told they must never ever enter. Similarly when said new employee asks what it is they should be doing they are given a suduko to do and a pen to chew on and told to have a great time as that’s what Haringey is all about. Great times.
Luckily in the news today a man has spontaneously combusted in Galway and scientists may have discovered a speed that’s faster than the speed of light. Both of these are incredibly exciting prospects. I have always loved the concept of spontaneous combustion and I’d consider it a damn good way to go. Imagine your body giving up on the world so bad it exploded. The man in Galway (and yes, I do send my condolences to his family) was completely burnt, so not a classic ‘just leaving the shoes’ combustion, but still it appeared his entire body had lit up of its own accord with no evidence of flammables. Imagine that? I wonder what it felt like, if he had a real fever and felt like he was burning up? Or if he just went ‘fuck it’ and then ‘boom!’ and gone. I’d like more people to spontaneously combust please. It’d certainly create confusion for suicide bombers if nothing else. Yes, this is just the oddly destructive part of my nature that likes it when things explode, very much wants to one day use a T-Detonator on a chimney stack and spent 5 mins this morning watching the Professionals until a car exploded, I cheered then turned the telly off.
The other news story about the subatomic particles sent from the Cern centre to the Grand Sasso laboratory (a place that sounds like some sort of king of swing lives there. ‘All hail Grand Sasso! Bring him the dancing girls!’) that appear to have travelled quicker than the speed of light is very exciting too. If that is the case (and they investigating it thoroughly) then it changes everything. Not least a whole load of super heroes who are now not the fastest thing ever. I wonder what they’ll call it? I was always a fan of the Speed of Lint in The Tick:
I hope they call it that. Or the speed of….and then the make a noise that is indecipherable. When people ask what they said they say it again and when asked what it is, they say its so fast you can’t hear it. Then as the speed of sound is so much slower they’d run after the person and shout ‘BANG!’ in their ear. I should so totally be a scientist. I’m not though.
Anyway, thanks the news. You’ve made things better. Let’s hope all of Haringey council start to spontaneously combust faster than the speed of light then I’ll never be sad again.
Lastly, I’ve posted it everywhere else, so may as well stick it here too. Here’s my new online vid of a bit of my ‘Tiernan Douieb vs The World’ show. Please watch, ‘like’ if you do and send it on. Ta loads.
UK NATIONAL DEBT AND MPs – TIERNAN DOUIEB
