Volcano U-B

Yesterday was like starting the day finding out you've won first prize in a beauty contest (collect £10) followed by being dowsed, head to toe, in raw liquid effluent. Totally unconnected events, but one totally ruins the memory of the other.

To summarise - good, followed by unmitigated shit.

It was all going so well too...I'd had a nice long Christmas lunch with some friends, a bit (well, a lot) of mulled wine and a relaxing stroll.

Then all hell broke loose.

Firstly, the server at one of our off-site locations finally died after running agonisingly slow for several weeks. We tried repairing it, but to no avail, and all the time aware that the clock is ticking and people are noticing their network is down. After spending the best part of an hour cramped in a very small computer room with our heads inside a large box filled with electricity, myself and the head of IT decided to replace it with the backup server at our original location.

The taxi we telephoned to assist us with doing this didn't turn up until half an hour after it said it would. It then disobeyed our instructions to park outside and parked several streets away, refusing to come nearer.

Once we replaced this, I received a long awaited update of some software we've developed. It was two days later than I expected and requiring a turn-around by the end of the week, so I wasn't too happy when I discovered it didn't work.

However, all these could be treated as water under the bridge if it weren't for what I encountered with South West Trains.

I had to get an extension to my Oyster card into Zone 4, so I went to the ticket office, and arranged this. I was told it was £1.20 and, beign very low on cash at the moment, I had to hand it over in bits and pieces: one £1 coin, one 5p coin, 5 2p coins and 5 1p coins. I divided it up into piles so he could check easily, and apologised for not having any rounder figures.

SWT Employee: I don't have to accept this you know.

I smiled and shrugged in a resigned way.

SWT Employee: Don't laugh. I don't have to accept this.

U-B: Well, I'm sorry, I don't have any other money.

SWT Employee: I could give this to the next person - how do you think you'd like it if that was you?

U-B: (Tad flabbergasted)...errr...I'm sorry...

WHAT A RAGING FUCKING COCKMASTER!!!! I'd like to hold his head out over the train tracks at a non-stopping station and watch as his stupid fat fucking face gets purée-d all over the front of one of SWT's nice new trains.

Furthermore I can't believe I apologised so often to this steaming lump of horse shite masquerading as a man. What I should have done is say "I'm sorry, since when did 2 and 1p coins cease to be legal tender?".

Actually no. What I should have done is smash the glass separating me and the useless fuckwit. Then I'd should have reached across, grabbed him by his shirt and repeatedly smashed his smug fat grimace into the broken bits of glass at the bottom. Then I would have ripped off the top of his head and SHAT ON HIS BRAIN!!!!

You give a mindless fucking moron like that total twat a little bit of power and he goes wild with it. I hope he dies under the wheel of one of his trains with several people looking on and laughing.