As
I scoffed toast I saw that two of my ex-trainees had married (each other).
Back in the day our lives were incredibly intertwined… and now I find they got
married through what I read on Facebook. But such is life; we all move on.
This
morning’s squabble on Facebook was about how much the Queen’s funeral will cost
the tax-payer… with most of those opposed to spending public money not being
those who’ve ever paid much tax.
I
wandered up the road to find my car, and once I’d found it I headed
south-wards. As I drove there were only two subjects on the radio; the service
of remembrance for the Queen (which was taking place somewhere in Scotland)
and occasional mentions of the Ukrainian resurgence in their ongoing war
against the invading Russians. I’ve always considered myself something of a
royalist, but I must admit I’m getting sick of hearing about the dead Queen and
the new King. There must be more in the news than that?
I
got to Hastings and found the Priory Meadow car park; when I’d last visited the
place it had been a cricket pitch. With a little time on my hands I Munzee-ed
for half an hour, then went to the registry office to get Dad’s death registered…
What
a ridiculous formality.
The
hospital had emailed all the details of his death to the registry office. All I
had to do was declare that I was his son and say that everything the hospital
had said was spelt correctly. Which (of course) it was. I then paid them
good money for copies of the death certificate.
Have
you ever been to the register office in Hastings? Someone there is on a nice
little earner. As well as charging you to spell-check the hospital, if you are
registering the birth of a child they will sell you a nice frame for the birth
certificate. Or they will sell you it in scroll form. Getting married? They
will sell you “I Do” umbrellas and nice ornate fountain pens to sign the
register. They offered me one of those pens to sign the death certificate… I
didn’t rise to it.
I
then drove to work, taking a somewhat circuitous route as someone had been
playing silly beggars by moving the “Road Closed” signs about. Mind you
I think I probably only went ten miles further than I needed to.
As
I got to work my phone beeped. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that on
Thursday I alluded to a bad experience my brother and I had had in a pub. At
the time I went into a little more detail about the episode on my Facebook
account, and the owner of said pub found my comment and tried (four days too
late) to explain why she’d taken umbrage and announced that my giving a
factual account of the episode on TripAdvisor was “unkind”.
Basically
last Thursday my brother and I walked into an empty (that’s not “not many
customers”, that’s “empty”) pub, bought fifteen quid’s worth of drinks, and
once our money was safely in their till, the landlady told us we weren’t
welcome.
Ironically
it turns out that the woman wasn’t happy that we had been swearing at the bar…
odd as we were sitting down when she got nasty. And doubly odd as (over many
years) the place has got itself a reputation as one of the roughest pubs in
the area.
As
I replied to her this evening, if she could have said what her problem was at
the time I wouldn’t have publicly slated them. I suspect I will regret replying
to her comment though…
But
(if nothing else) this shows the power of TripAdvisor…
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