Beware the posse of shysters

I was on the phone the other day with Jason, a man I've known for some time-and who loves to talk so much that we were on the phone for two hours-long enough for my ear to want to drop off. But-Jason is the person who is handling the complaint against the crooked and incompetent cowboy builders, Mulalley (of Essex. No surprise there!). So we had a long chat.

Shyster is a term that means crook or thief, by the way. I should do a glossary of terminology, shouldn't I, since I have lived here for so long that I use all the local expressions (especially the four letter ones). And, before I forget, a friend of mine loves this blog, and has emailed me to define "pillock". A pillock is roughly the same as a plonker: an idiot, a fool, a bit of a wanker. It's close to a prat-but a prat is more obnoxious than a pillock, who is usually a clueless idiot. So, if you are reading this and aren't in this country, you have a few more derogatory names to call someone before you turn and sprint for a safe distance between you. Better to be safe than sorry, I always say.

During the course of the conversation, we were talking about our definition of pillocks-and shysters (I probably misspelled it, but you get the idea, anyway): personal injury lawyers. Many incompetent doctors (the cripplers: past history indeed). Politicians (that's an obvious one). Builders (really!). Insurance salespeople. Traffic wardens. And, everyone's favorite: the tax inspector. Everyone who has ever been audited will have them at the top of the list.

Jason hasn't been too well, and hasn't been able to chase up the Ombudsman about the Mulalley complaint. So, I told him a traffic warden story to cheer him up. It's the absolute truth, and he hates them, since he always gets ticketed when his meter runs out.

I remember my car being towed, and having to pay a huge amount in fines-and I was innocent, so I decided to fight the ticket in court. This was my first and only time in an English courtroom, which was very small and presided over by a magistrate. The traffic warden fought, I fought, and the magistrate believed me, so I got the money back. And-a few months later, I was walking down the same street and saw the same traffic guy (we call them yellow perils over here, because of the color of the uniforms. They make really good targets if you want to run over one of them).

This prat was standing next to a car that was about to run out of time. He stood right next to this old banger (if it had been a fancy car I wouldn't have bothered, but it wasn't), waiting for the two minutes to be up, and starting to write out a ticket. So I went up to him (he didn't recognize me), and started calling him names. You piece of crap, I said, at least give someone a few minutes before you start writing. I was holding my keys, so he looked at me and wrote out the ticket and put it on the windshield. Wow, you scumbag, I said (you can tell I was really enjoying this-far too much), and he stood there and wrote out a second ticket. Then I called him a fat, ugly bastard and said that he was too fat and ugly to ever get a date. There went a third ticket. This went on for another couple of tickets; I insulted his mother, his parentage, said he should have a bath more than once a decade...and on and on I went, and the tickets were piling up.

Finally, I looked at him and laughed, and said "you really are an asshole. This isn't even my car". And I turned and walked away. I hope he got fired.

So I cheered Jason up tremendously, and finally got off the phone. Then I had to call the Ebac people-the makers of my dehumidifier, which decided to stop working the other day. I did everything to try to fix it myself. I switched it off and back on, disconnected it and waited to see if it would reset itself-I even kicked it a few times. No luck. So I finally got in touch with some customer service person, explained the situation, and pointed out that the same thing happened last year, and I was without the machine for seven weeks because the company was closed over Christmas. This guy listened, and I could hear him sniff as he said "Madam (The only thing worse than calling me madam is calling me darling. I verbally abuse anyone who calls me darling-unless I'm their darling, of course), you must have done something, because these machines are built to British standard." Ah, there is a God, and I got the perfect opening to shoot back "yes, and so was the Titanic".

The Ebac is being fixed, should be back next Tuesday-and I need to be careful when I switch it on just to make sure they haven't rigged it to explode.

Yesterday was a week since my throat biopsy, and it has been a pretty good week. I've whacked a few idiots with my elbow crutch, I've entertained a few acquaintances who were a little on the down side, I've been to the gym and I've done a lot of walking-even though it rained. And rained. And rained. Still, I have both legs working (more or less), so who can complain? Life is good. Let's see how many more idiots I can insult. My swear box needs filling up.