webvictim.net

It’s been a lovely weekend. My best friend Matt and I held a bit of a barbecue and gaming evening at his house on Saturday which was great fun - Sarah, Louise and Jo came round and we played Monopoly, baseball on the Wii and Guitar Hero. We also got rather drunk which was fun, until such time as I got a phone call from my brother saying that he’d had a car crash. It turned out that my parents couldn’t drive and neither could I, but I got a lift down to go and see him as he sounded a bit shaken up on the phone.

When I got there, it turned out that the car that hit him had driven off with a broken radiator - my brother’s car was in a pretty bad way, so they must have hit him pretty hard. I just let the police do their job and gave my brother a comforting arm round the shoulders - not a lot else I could do really. I’m unsure if they’ve caught the people who did it yet or whether that’s still in progress.

I watched the European Cup final last night, thought it was a brilliant game - Spain totally deserved to win as they were all over Germany from about 15 minutes in until right at the end of the game. Torres scored a lovely goal, and Spain were unlucky not to get two or three more.

It’s rather hot today. Work is going alright, but it’s a bit loud thanks to the 3 HP DL140s running by my feet. Configuring servers is a noisy process!

During my time at University in Liverpool, I didn’t witness much violence at all. Despite the bad reports that you sometimes hear about big cities, Liverpool was never that bad a place to go out. Of course there were incidents, but they were usually minor, and I never experienced any such trouble myself. This may be because I tend to keep myself to myself, but I never felt uncomfortable or unsafe when I was out in the town.

There is a big club called “Nation” in Wolstenholme Square. It’s most well-known as being the home of “Cream”, Liverpool’s famous nightclub which closed several years ago. There are still other events going on there, and during my three years I went to a few drum & bass nights there. They were always good fun, everyone got on (mostly because they were all on ecstasy and too busy gurning and hugging each other to do anything else). There used to be an event every Wednesday called “Medication”, which offered cheap entry for students, loud house music and many single people for the night. I went quite a few times - it wasn’t really my cup of tea, but I like a night out as much as anyone else.

One particuar time, my housemate Paul’s younger brother came over to visit from Ireland. Paul, wanting to show him a good night out, got us all to go to Medication for the evening. We had a good evening, but on leaving at 2am (closing time), Paul got into an argument with the bouncers. He tried to go out of the door holding a bottle of WKD in each hand, and the bouncers (rightfully) stopped him, saying he couldn’t do so. The corridors for leaving were very narrow, and Paul asked if he could step outside quickly to finish his bottles and clear the corridor. The bouncers were indignant that he couldn’t, and Paul downed the remains of one bottle and then proceeded to argue with the bouncers. They forced his bottle off him and pushed him out of the door, where he proceeded to noisily remonstrate with them about the injustice of them taking a drink off him that he had paid for. He asked several times to see the manager, only to be met with apathy and silence.

I’ll admit it now, he was being a bit of a tool. I understood where he was coming from, but the bouncers were only doing their job and making sure that he didn’t go and smash the bottle over someone’s head. Obviously it seems like a good idea to argue when you’re drunk, however.

The bouncers grabbed Paul and dragged him to the other side of a set of security railings, which are put there to keep the crowds back from the exits. There were lots of people around as it was kicking out time, and the scuffle didn’t go unnoticed. An official-looking woman who seemed to be the manager had appeared at the exit, and Paul promptly escaped the bouncers’ grasp and went up to question her on why he couldn’t finish his bottle. He’d barely got two words out before two bouncers grabbed him again, forced him back to the other side of the security railing… and then began to throw punches at him. The crowds backed off and there was a lot of comotion - girls screaming “get off him!” and many people just watching and wondering what on earth Paul had done to deserve this.

He went down to the floor almost instantly, as the bouncers were big and he didn’t really stand a chance. His brother saw this and ran over quickly, punching one bouncer and throwing him backwards, but he took a surprise punch from the other bouncer and hit the floor himself, at which point yet another bouncer ran in, and they both started kicking what I can only describe as seven shades of shit out of them both. I like to think that I’m able to look after myself, and I won’t deny that I was very tempted to jump in to try and help Paul out, but upon seeing the kicking they were receiving, I really wasn’t about to throw myself into it when I wasn’t part of what was going on in the first place.

This all happened very quickly, and was probably over in ten seconds or so. Before this happened though, one of the bouncers grabbed Paul’s bottle, and broke it over his brother’s head. I’d seen enough by this point and I think the crowd had too - the jeers and shouting had become absolutely deafening, and the bouncers backed off and went back to the door of the club, taking a lot of verbal abuse from the irate crowd. Paul and his brother managed to pick themselves up and were in a bad way. Paul’s teeth were wonky, his nose was bleeding and his face was red from the kicks he’d taken - his brother was bleeding profusely from the side of his head where the bottle had struck and he too was nursing a lot of bruises. There was a police van just round the corner and we told them about everything - a few policemen got out and started the questioning the bouncers and the crowd, and the driver gave us all a lift to the hospital.

I don’t think anything ever came of this in a legal sense, but it was an eye-opener for me. I’d never seen violence that bad in real life before, and again I was quite shocked by it all. One thing I will note is that when the fight originally started, one of the bouncers shouted “watch for the camera” as they ran over to Paul - it’s quite clear that the bouncers watched exactly where they started the trouble because they knew they could be caught on CCTV if they did it in certain areas. It’s the age-old “give them a kicking down a back alley” style.

Needless to say, I think that the bouncers in both these stories are pathetic, spineless police force rejects who have a god complex and a serious problem when it comes to abuse of pseudo-authority. I won’t say that Paul wasn’t inviting them to start something with him, but the use of a bottle is never, ever necessary.

During the summer before starting university, my friends and I were looking for some excitement. We’d all been 18 (and hence old enough to drink) for quite a while, and going out in the same old places had become rather boring - particularly when you consider that we’d actually been doing it illegally since we were 16 anyway.

For some reason, we decided to go out in Hertford, which is the county town of Hertfordshire (duh) and about a 20-minute train journey from Hitchin station. We arrived there one evening (it may have been a Friday night, I can’t remember) and set about having a few drinks - the town was quite busy and we had a good time, ending up in “Zero’s” bar at about 11pm. The place was closing shortly and we were told that we could go downstairs to their club (”Sub Zero’s”) if we paid, as it was open later. We went down, and continued the evening. The place was a bit of a dive, but the music was playing and it wasn’t too bad. Matt and Craig (my male company for the evening) were talking about Matt’s girlfriend, Jo (who was also there) in a friendly manner and there was some goading and larking about on their part as they discussed all this.

As a part of all this, Craig got Matt in a friendly headlock and ruffled his hair. At this point, everything went a bit crazy. Three bouncers rushed over to split them up, then forced each of their arms up their backs and frog-marched them to the exit. I rushed after them, realising what had happened, and tried to explain to the bouncers that they’d made a mistake. Craig and Matt were also doing the same at this point, but of course nobody was listening. They got to the top of the stairs and were escorted to the front entrance and pushed out. Craig turned round and raised his hands, saying “whoa, whoa, you’ve got it all wrong mate”… at which point the bouncer punched him in the face. He didn’t just do it once either, he gave him three or four hard punches - made Craig’s nose bleed but didn’t manage to knock him down. I watched the whole thing happen in astonishment, and when we were standing out on the street afterwards, Matt was full of righteous indignation and called the police.

We went to court on two separate occasions for that incident, but in the end the judge didn’t convict him due to lack of evidence on the CPS’ part. The CCTV footage from outside the club was never obtained because it conveniently went “missing” (funny that) and there just wasn’t enough other evidence to find the bastard guilty. He was suspended from work for six months or so while the court proceedings were going through, and I hope with every fibre of my being that he sat at home and worried about going to jail for a long time. I’m not sure if he still works there, mainly because we’ve never been back.

A guy is so pissed off with Myspace that he’s decided to create an “international delete your Myspace account” day.

I find this very amusing, and in fact there’s even a Facebook event you can sign up to, to notify people that you’ll be doing the same thing. I was thinking about getting rid of my account anyway as I don’t ever use Myspace any more and find it utterly hideous… I might as well try and send some sort of message by doing it on the same date as a load of other people.

If you have a Myspace account, I strongly urge you to read the blog post linked above and consider joining the cause. Let’s say no to shit CSS styling, spammy adverts and even poor security…

I am fed up with everyone wanting everything yesterday. Just back the fuck off and get some perspective, would you? It won’t kill you to wait five extra minutes for something, especialy not if it means that the job is done better.

I am going to see Babyshambles this evening. Perhaps I’ll ask Pete to throw me some crack to calm me down.

I think it was Robbie Williams who wrote “All the best women are married/all the handsome men are gay”.

It’s pretty true, you know. The girls I like when I look at them are always in relationships or generally “with” other people - what’s the deal with this?

I’ve heard it said before that you are instantly more attractive to the opposite sex when you are in a relationship yourself (either that, or getting regular sex from somewhere) so maybe that’s just what’s getting me here - perhaps I am just doomed to only fancy girls I can’t have? :P

(And yes, I know I’m not the first person to have had this thought, and I also know I won’t be the last. It just needed to be said)

It’s come to my attention that recently, I haven’t actually had that much time to spend doing things that are solely for me.

It used to be that I went to work from 9-5:30, then on three days out of five I’d go to the gym, then home, and on the other two days I’d go straight home. When I arrived home, all that time was mine - I could do whatever I liked, usually watch TV, play games and just generally relax.

Lately though, I’ve been so busy with work on our new booking engine that I just haven’t had time for myself. I barely make it to the gym at the moment, because we work late and have deadlines to meet. With rehearsals for the show as well, I often don’t get home until 10:30pm, when I have about an hour and a half to do anything for myself before I really need to be in bed. Of course I rarely make it to bed at this time and end up staying up late to do the things I want to do, and then I end up at work the next day feeling very tired indeed.

I relish the challenge, and I think that these times are a lot of fun, but part of me can’t help but wish for the day that I can go back to my normal routine and actually get some sleep again.

I don’t have time for women who can’t or won’t communicate. Getting left standing around when you’re supposed to be meeting them is just totally unacceptable - I wouldn’t mind if you can’t be arsed with a relationship any more, or if you’d rather fuck your ex or something, but you could at least tell me about it.

I paid attention to two news stories in the past couple of days, due to being bored at work and using net surfing as a source of procrastination.

1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6735631.stm
Paris Hilton got sent back to jail! I hope she does the female equivalent of dropping the soap in the shower and learns a lesson. She’s nothing but a deluded socialite who thinks that she can do anything she likes because Daddy has made a fortune, and she totally deserves to spend the time in jail. What sort of society are we living in where people can get out of jail after just three days and spend the time living in a cushy mansion somewhere under “house arrest”?

2) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6732873.stm
So a white middle class girl called someone a nigger? Big deal, it’s happened before and it will happen again. The fact is that racism is an integral part of British society. It might not be right, but it is just something that is true. Everyone tries to claim that they are bigger than it, or that they love everyone equally, but it just isn’t true.

Think of it this way. Anyone who gets even slightly worried when a group of black people walks towards them on their walk home is technically a racist. Anyone who sees an Asian man in the street and thinks “I bet he’s either a doctor or owns a corner shop” is technically a racist. There are many more examples of this.

Political correctness has gone too far, and in my opinion, we are at risk of losing our British identity in an effort to be too tolerant and multicultural. Is it any wonder that the BNP have a lot of support in northern English cities? A lot of people do literally see the world as black and white, and the media circus that is created whenever something like this happens is just serving to unsettle the country. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we see another civil war at some point in my lifetime.

The other reality is that Big Brother only booted Emily from the house because of the Shilpa Shetty race row that got them negative publicity last time. They got a slap on the wrist from OFCOM and now they have to make examples of anyone who uses certain words on the show.

I’d like to know what Endemol would do if everyone else in the house got involved in an absolutely huge row and used “racist” words, to the point where they had no alternative but to throw all the housemates out. That’d make their overtired show a bit more interesting, wouldn’t it?!

This is quite a long story, but I’m in the mood for exercising my writing fingers.

My best friend Matt lives in Baldock, which is a small town about 6 miles away from Hitchin, where I live. He moved into a one-bedroom flat at the end of last year with his long-term girlfriend Jo. Parking is fairly tight in Baldock as it’s a fairly old town which has had to expand to cope with the amount of cars there are on modern roads, and as such it is quite difficult to find a space, much less one where you can leave your car for an extended period of time. For this reason, the landlord of the flats Matt lives employs a private wheel clamping company, who come and check the car park every so often for cars without passes and clamp them as a deterrent.

About two months ago, I went to visit Matt on a Saturday to drop some games off to him and have a quick chat. I parked my car in the loading bay outside the front door, and went into his flat to speak to him. When I came back out twenty minutes later, there was a big yellow clamp on the driver’s side front wheel of my car. It’s worth pointing out that this was March, and when he moved in last November, the landlord who owns the flats was “between clamping companies”, which meant that parking in the area went unchecked, and therefore to see a clamper actually around was something of a shock. I looked at the clamp in astonishment, and then walked past my car and out into the courtyard. I saw an unfamiliar-looking old white van, and a guy in tracksuit bottoms lying on the floor next to a Mazda MX-5, applying another clamp.

Me: “Hey, mate - why have you clamped my car?”
Him: “You don’t have a pass, mate”
Me: “I don’t need one - I was in the loading bay. I’ve only been here 20 minutes”
Him: “Well I’ve been here 10, and you were there when I came”
Me: “…so that would imply that I have actually been here more than 10 minutes then, possibly the 20 minutes I just said I had, then?”
Him: “Errrrrrr”

Suffice it to say, he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Me: “So are you going to unclamp my car then?”
Him: “I can’t do that.”
Me: “Why not?”
Him: “I don’t have the key.”
Me: “Right. So how do people get unclamped, then?”
Him: “They pay the release fee. £105.75″

I laughed at him, and walked off. After a quick conversation with Matt, we decided that the best thing to do would be to ring the landlord, who had obviously not notified the clamping company that loading bays were present in the car park - they just assumed all spaces were the same, and “no pass equals clamp”. The landlord wasn’t answering the phone however, so I called the 0845 number on the large sticker that had been clumsily stuck on my car window. A guy who was quite clearly on his mobile phone answered, and even after I explained the situation, he informed me that the only way to get released was to pay the release fee, and then appeal against it if I thought that it was unjust. I laughed at him as well, and hung up the phone.

About an hour passed, and the clamper showed back up in his van. I grabbed the notice board from the foyer of the flats, which contains a parking plan and clearly marks the loading bays, and took it out to show him.

Me: *patronising tone* “Would you agree that this is a plan of this car park?”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: “Would you agree that that blob there *points at paper* is clearly that building there *points at Matt’s block*?”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: “Would you agree that this bay here, marked “LB” is the bay where my car, that silver Seat Ibiza with the clamp on, is parked?”
Him: “Yes, I would.”
Me: “OK. Would you agree that, according to the legend on this parking plan, LB means ‘loading bay’?”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: “Right. So would you agree that my car is actually parked in a loading bay and not a regular parking space, and you have clamped it wrongly?”
Him: “Yes, I would.”
Me: “Would you care to explain why you won’t remove it then?”
Him: “Oh, I don’t have the authority to do that.”

This was unbelievable. Here I was, showing him concrete evidence that I was in the right and he was in the wrong, and yet he still wouldn’t take the clamp off. I explained that we’d tried to call the landlord but he wasn’t answering the phone, and his response was basically that I’d have to pay the £105 release fee if I wanted my car back.

At about 4pm (my car was originally clamped at around 12:30pm) I needed to go home to do things, and so I called the company and grumpily asked them to send round the guy who takes payment. Imagine my [sarcasm]total surprise[/sarcasm] when the same guy who clamped my car in the first place showed back up in his van. He produced a chip and PIN machine and took payment from me, gave me a receipt and a complaint form, and then pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the clamp. When I saw him pull out the keys, I laughed, and watched like a hawk while he removed the clamp to make sure he didn’t scuff my alloys.

That was pretty bad luck on my part, and I was rather annoyed at the situation. The story doesn’t stop there, though.

The landlord called Matt back on Monday. He said that he was sorry but he finished at 1 on Saturdays, and therefore he’d returned his call as soon as he got back to work. Matt explained the whole story to him, and said that as a resident, he was very displeased with the way the clampers went about their business. The landlord promised he would speak to the clampers and look into it. A couple of weeks later, he called Matt back to say that I was due a refund, and that I should speak to the clampers to sort it out. I called the company and they said that they’d agreed to pay half the money, while the landlord paid the other half. I said I didn’t care who paid provided I got every penny of my money back, because I shouldn’t have been charged it in the first place. I gave them my name and address and they said they’d send out a cheque once the director who signs the cheques got back from holiday.

I’ll cut the story down here because it’s getting a bit boring, but I called the clamping company nine times before I eventually got the cheque out of them. Every time I was told “oh it’s in the post”, “it’s been sent to you”, “oh for fuck’s sake it must have been lost in the post, I’ll get another one out to you”, “my director’s still on holiday”, “my director’s not been in yet” etc etc. Considering the usual attitude I have to being fed a load of bullshit, I was very restrained and only lost my temper with the guy on the other end of the phone once. The rest of the time I just made sure I was a persistent thorn in their side who wouldn’t go away.

Every time I called, I got the same guy, and he told me the same lies. The last time I called, I got someone different, who was apparently one of the directors, and the guy who signs the cheques. He told me that the cheque had been signed and “sent out to you yesterday”, and when I said that I didn’t believe him because I’d been told that before, he said that he’d signed the cheque personally and it had been sent, and there was nothing more to it. At that point, the guy I usually spoke to walked back into the office, and I heard the director say “I’ve got Mr. Luxton on the phone about his refund”. The usual guy replied “Oh yeah, that cheque you signed is on my desk”. At this point, I erupted into laughter at the fact that they had been so obviously caught out lying to me. In the end, they didn’t post the cheque at all - I suggested that if they had a guy going out to Matt’s area that day then they should drop it in his letterbox for me, and conveniently enough they had. Matt rang me that evening (last Friday, in fact) to confirm that there was a cheque payable to me sitting in his mailbox, for £105.75. Hallelujah.

I have written this post because I am simply overjoyed that they have finally paid me. I am still waiting for the cheque to clear, but I have cleared the majority of the hurdles. I can’t be the only one who thinks that it is total and utter bollocks that I’ve had to wait this long for a refund on money I should never have had to pay in the first place. They have claimed interest on my money for nearly two months as a result of this, and while that probably isn’t a massive amount of money, it’s the principle.

The name of the original clamper was Matthew Betts. The guy I spoke to in the office on all these occasions was called Danny. The company are called SIA Security Services, they are based in Bedford, and they are a complete and utter bunch of fucking wankers - you can quote me on that. It’s not libel because it’s true. I never want to see or hear from them again. Ever.

This weekend has been alright. I chilled out at home and watched TV on Friday evening, went out into town with a few mates for some beers on Saturday night, and then drove my parents to Lincoln on Sunday to visit my gran for Mother’s Day.

It would have been better if the bouncers on the Corn Exchange had decided to let me in though, rather than giving me some lip about the fact that I was wearing skateshoes. I like comfortable feet, what’s so wrong with that? :(

Today, in my role as roving IT bod for a travel software company (i.e. one part of my job), I am at my company’s Redhill office. Redhill is about a 75 mile drive from my normal office, so usually I would get the train here. However I needed to bring a printer and some NAS with me, so I decided that driving would be better than sitting on a train cuddling a large Brother laser and a LaCie Ethernet Disk.

This morning, I left my house at 7:45am. I arrived in Redhill a bit after 11:30am. For the non-mathematical or lazy amongst my readers, this means that it took me nearly 4 hours to travel 75 miles. That’s absolutely fucking ridiculous.

The reason for this delay was pretty much fourfold. Firstly, it was raining cats and dogs this morning, which means everyone has to drive a bit slower and there are usually more accidents than there would be on a lovely sunny day. Secondly, there was heavy traffic on the A1(M) approaching the Hatfield tunnel. Thirdly, it took exactly one hour for me to travel 0.3 miles towards M25 junction 21A at Chiswell Green. Finally, there was a lorry blocking two lanes of the M25 at junction 12, which caused me a further 45 minutes delay.

On top of all that, the colour laser printer that was my primary reason for coming here hasn’t actually been delivered yet. If the traffic is anything like this bad on the way home, I will probably be home at around 10pm.

Christ :(