How many are in there?

The Queen hosted a state banquet with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia today and eagle-eyed Jeana caught her feelings about this on camera.

Clearly “up for the cup” would not be the best description of her feelings about the ensuing lunch.

Maybe she’s been spending too much time with Pheelip.

Tsk, tsk.

Four of the handsomest chefs on the planet cooked a three course meal (with three or four choices per course) for 60 of the ladies of Holy Cross Parish on Saturday. Given that I was at it from 10 am to 11pm the day after the hedonistic Scottish Advertising Awards it made for a tough gig.

My dad did it for years, so I took his place this year.

But we made at least £500 profit for charity so can’t really complain.

At least we looked good.

Nae. Great!

My mother made this in a mosaic night school class in the 1970’s. I quite liked it at the time, but I saw it in a new light when I stayed overnight with her at the weekend.

I think it’s lovely.

Sean Keaveney described this beautifully on Radio 6 this morning.

“It’s a programme where a bunch of multi-millionaires mock the mentally ill and then run a six week public crying contest.”

Quite.

I thought HBO was the real deal.

But, the more I think about it and hear other opinion I realise I am not alone in questioning the ending of The Sopranos. It is so open for James Gandolfino to have a change of mind and come back at ANY time in the next ten years or so, that it questions the integrity of the show that was a US TV institution.

All it would take to bring it back would be a quick recap of the last 2 minutes of last night’s programme - the assumed killer who decamped to the lavvy comes out and proves to be nothing other than a dodgy looking guy in need of a pee.

Half the cast is dead by now of course so that, on the plus side, solves a few continuity problems, but on the other means we need a new cast.

But, hey, it’s mafia - shit happens.

So, here we go. Episode 1 series seven, 2015.

Quick catch up (in black and white, of course, of the last 8 years) and HBO are back on the go.

Workin’ for the Yankee dollar.

(Don’t do it Jamesy.

Screw their plan.)

I love this story.

A medieval church in Heursford, Germany was to be demolished because a new coalmine was to be opened on its site. It’s obviously a lovely church and the locals must have felt very close to it.

So, they thought. Bugger that; we’re not letting a coal mine get in the way of our religion.

We’ll move it.

So they did. They hoiked it up on the back of a lorry…

And moved it down the road to the next town.

God 1 - 0 Coal industry.

Bless!

So that’s it.

The end of The Sopranos.

The family gathers in the Five and Dime. Happy for once. Tony leans over to change the track on the jukebox and the director cuts to …

Goodbye.

Over and out.

No more Sopranos.

The best series ever on TV (they say) and it ends on a cop out.

Not good.

Not good at all.

Short changed I’d say.

If any of you have ever traveled in a car with Mark you may be aware of how calming a situation it is. If too many sets of lights are at red the road rage begins. Have you ever tried to navigate for Mark. “Are you sure that’s the correct way?” “Now, you have to concentrate.” “For fucks sake, let me see the map.” And that’s only getting out of our street.

We’ve had the broken mirrors and mobile phones, all from him punching things in frustration when we get slightly lost. All of course mostly my fault as I have to navigate.

Well, Mark mentioned the immortal words the other day “You know, getting a sat nav might not be a bad idea.”. Music to my ears, I’ve only wanted one for the past three years. Pleading that it would stop all the arguments in the car.

But, here’s the next argument. Do you go for the brand leader - TomTom or are they all much the same. What if the satellite navigation system is no good. What if the maps are outdated or you can’t download new information quickly. The woman/man doesn’t talk in the correct voice. What if the route isn’t the quickest way Mark would take. I can think of lots of problems.

So, I would like your help and advice. Do any of you have a satellite navigation system and would you recommend it and why. I can’t bear to buy one and then watch it fly past my head as Mark throws it out the window half way through our first journey because there’s something about it he doesn’t like. Of course with the words “For fuck’s sake, I told you it was a waste of money.”

I look forward to hearing from you.

I had lunch with an old pal yesterday and he told me a great story. He’s an advertising art director and a few years ago he was making a commercial with a precocious young director. All went well until they were in the edit suite looking at an almost final cut of the ad which carried, for the first time, captions and supers.

Bob, (let’s call my pal that) said.

“Tarquin (let’s call him that), I’m not sure about that type face you know, how about we try a san seriff version”.

“I went to art college too you know!” He shrieked, over defensively.

At this point Bob thought, “Oops, might have a pretentious twat on my hands here” so replied inquisitively “Oh really?”

“Yeah, The Royal College of Art, actually.”

“Oh, what a coincidence, when were you there?”

“88″

“Me too, did you know John Smith, he was great wasn’t he?”

“Nah” he stuttered “never met him”

“Or Professor Brown, what a great teacher, everyone’s favourite”

“Nope, don’t remember him.”

“Her, actually”

“No , doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Well, you must know Sally Potts. EVERYBODY knew Sally, did a great typography class, and obviously that’s one of your interests.”

“I don’t know any of them ” blurted Tarquin ” I was doing film.”

“Oh. Right” A directional change.

” So, what did you think of Professor Plum then. He was a great leader of the film faculty.”

At last the truth came out….

“No, I didn’t know him either…Actually, I only did a film discussion group on a Tuesday night.”

“Shall we try Helvetica then Tarquin?”

Back of the net!

I love Joni Mitchell!

Fact.

Although, I feel I am too young to be this devoted.

After all, she is old enough to be my mother. That said, you can’t ignore class. The Beatles coulda been my Grandads; the Stones too.

Jimi?

Well, he’d just be a badly influential uncle.

Joni is pure and utter class. And she has ‘classes’ of fans, her folk fans, her Jazz fans, her in-betweeni fans.

I’m one of them. The inbetweeni.

And this is one of those albums. Closest call in her past life? Hejira!

The album opens with a two chord piano riff that takes your breath away. It is possibly the perfect opening stance. Two aces in a Texas Hold ‘em.

The song (well it’s an instrumental) recalls a beautiful summer day and it is the best piece of music I have heard this year, bar none. The fact that it is instrumental is, I think, a brilliant holding device because how will Joni sound when she finally sings after a self imposed ten year retirement from the music scene?

Growly, gruff, mature, wondrous. That’s how she sounds.

The album is self assured, beautiful and flawed. Her 21st century take on Big Yellow Taxi that is the centrepiece of this great album doesn’t work for me, because it lacks the youthful rebellion of its inception.

‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling is given an interpretation that I think comes off, just.

But, overall, if I was 65, retired 10 years and making a comeback, this is how I’d like to do it.

Think Eric Cantona Playing for Man Utd in the Champions League and scoring a hatrick.

Then again. Think Joni Mitchell at the top of her game.

5 star. No doubt.

And, you know what. This confirms that Canada is music country of the year. If you are in any doubt check it out here.

This is incredible.

Scotland’s highest ever FIFA world rankings. And look who is only two places above us.

Incidentally this is the population rankings of those above us.

1 Brazil 187m

2 Germany 82m

3 France 64m

4 Italy 59m

5 England 50m

6 Spain 45m

7 Argentina 39m

8 Romania 21m

9 Netherlands 16m

10 Portugal 10m

11 Czeck Republic 10m

12 Scotland 5m

13 Croatia 4.5m

And of the 7 teams below us in the top 20 only Uruguay is smaller in population terms.

The top 9 European teams become number 1 seeds for the World Cup qualifiers. We currently sit 11th.

Bring on Italy.

Nice.

OK.

I have to say it.

I don’t mind if England win.

But only if they play well.

It’s easy to criticise. Believe me.

However, I have reason to do the opposite. We bought a Brabantia bin a couple of years ago. It cost a few bob but it broke under suspicious circumstances.

Anyway, Jeana went to Macro to buy a new one, ‘cos it’s a great bin.

While she was there she spotted that they had a 10 year guarantee. So, rather than buying a new one (she was in an odd mood) she phoned Brabantia and explained the situation.

“No problem madam, we’ll send you a new one.” They said.

It arrived today.

No receipt, no bullshit, no questions, no bother… just outstanding customer service.

I rather think I may never buy a bin from another bin-maker in my life and I would suggest you think likewise.

Perhaps Mondial UK might like to pay them a visit.

Would you be comfy with your local Bobby if he was always getting his bobby out?

“Nothing resembles an honest man more than a cheat.”

French Proverb

“Men cheat for the same reason that dogs lick their ball…because they can.”

Kim Caterall (Change the first word to Insurance companies)

“As you grow older you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.”

Harper Lee ( change white man to insurance company and black man to customer)

As many of my readers will know I have had a bad year with insurance companies. This post illustrates my point. In it I shared with you that my dad could not claim for cancelling his holiday in Lourdes in July, even though he was dying of cancer.

Of course, as we all know, he has now passed away as a result of this and consequently the family and I had to return from holiday after four days in Portugal because his condition had dramatically worsened after we left the country.

We went on holiday on the advice of three different consultants. Each assured us that they did not believe Dad’s condition would worsen in the following fortnight; but sure enough it did.

So, I would like to point out to anyone who reads this that they should be very wary of taking out holiday insurance with Mondial UK because what they do is, to all intents and purposes, cheat you of your money.

Some time after our return and my Dad’s death I filled in the claim form that we requested from Mondial UK, complete with a letter from the consultant stating that she believed it had been safe for us to travel.

Having received this they said this wasn’t good enough; they needed his GP’s report.

Why?

Did his GP have a better insight into his illness than the person that was treating him?

Really, I mean seriously, how could he? What is the point of this?

I’ll tell you the point.

It is more likely that the GP will play it safe and say we shouldn’t have gone, because he was remote from the case. He wasn’t MORE authoritative, he was LESS authoritative and that means he is more likely to err on the side of caution in case the insurance company come back on him. (Oh yes, and GP’s get nice wee earners from insurance companies to fill in forms saying the family were mad to go away, by the way. Believe me. I know.)

Anyway, we went ahead and got this. Bear in mind that we had to pay the GP a fee for this which was totally unnecessary because as it transpires they were always going to invoke the “you knew he was ill so you weren’t covered” clause.

Nevertheless his GP confirmed that it was appropriate for us to travel. At that point and that point only, bearing in mind that they had sufficient evidence BEFORE we paid for the GP’s report, they knocked our claim back totally because they said we knew he was ill before we travelled

OF COURSE WE BLOODY KNEW.

And so did they when we submitted the first claim, because we BLOODY TOLD THEM.

Why then, did they ask us to spend money getting another piece of evidence that said we were right to go on holiday, only to invoke a clause that made it quite clear that we would NEVER get the money back.

Why? I’ll tell you why.

Because they are cheats.

If they were playing the game fairly they would (at worst) have told us that we were on a hiding to nothing when we filled the claim in.

The only conclusion I can draw therefore is that they have no morals.

They have no decency.

They have no respect.

They have no sense of duty, service, care or understanding about how to deal with people - their customers.

Insurance is quite clearly a racket.

Two claims where death is not a reason for paying out on a claim. How do they live with themselves?

PS You know those hugely amusing ads by Nationwide with the big guy slagging off the dodgy practices of the Banks. Where he takes the piss out of their shareholders. Where he says nothing like that happens at Nationwide because we are moral.

We look after our customers.

We aren’t cheats like the banks.

Yes, you guessed it.

We bought the insurance from Nationwide. It was a white label product that presumably doesn’t come under Nationwide’s too good to be true image.

PPS. I’ve had a pile of emails about this. Don’t email me your shared grief. Put it on here for the world to see. Blogging is Social marketing. It is power. If they see what we think they might do something about it.

PPPS. Apparently the Insurance Ombudsman is potentially the key. I will let you know how I get on because I am not taking this one lying down.

PPPPS.  If you have even the remotest sympathy with my view please pass forward this link to everyone you know.  this is how social marketing can make a difference by giving us a chance as consumers to have our voice heard.

I saw this nestled in the background of the graveyard at Luss Church. I thought it was beautifully understated.