The city with roads to nowhere...

Today was a happy and at the same time a pretty bad day. Today our daughter Miss E was arriving from The Greatest Britain to see the house and of course freeload from us for three weeks. We had telephone communication and online communication setup to ensure that the little darling managed to get to the train station and airport on time, also we needed to ensure that she went to the right airport…you see she is only 22 years old and whilst I have not been a “curling parent” (someone who sweeps ahead and ensure that all is smooth for your little offspring…) I am aware that this was the first trip involving trains planes and automobiles without the guidance from Mr or Mrs E.

Miss E arrived safely at Copenhagen airport in Denmark, a short one and half hour drive from here. Once we picked her up I decided that instead of using the motorway I should take this opportunity and drive back to Elsinore, home of the Castle set in Hamlet Prince of Denmark written by the Greatest British author Mr Shakespeare, using the beach road…

Noted at this point that it was some 20 years since I went to Copenhagen driving and after Miss E had seen the statue of Hans Christian Andersen and driven down HC Andersen Boulevard 10 times looking into Tivoli Gardens she quietly told me “Dad…can we go home now?” The only problem was that the Danes have either had “Chinese metal thieves” around or someone had overnight removed all form of road signage from the Capital, of those beer brewing gents who took over Newcastle Breweries, so I was lost…truly lost…and then Mrs E came up with the brilliant idea of asking me to pull over and ask a bloke in the Shell Garage??? How stupid is that???

We drove around for another 45 minutes and then we found a sign which the Chinese had not spotted who directed us back out to the motorway thus allowing us to move in rapid speed back to Sweden…

This is the last time I complain at the road signs ever again in the Greatest Britain…

Photo Copyright Ruud Moret

To wait you need a ticket…

Firstly, Happy New Year to all of you, and I hope that 2008 has been exciting with not too many irritations. I am sorry about the delay in posting my next post but so many things have irritated me that had to calm down and get everything into perspective. I have finally made the move from The Greatest Britain to The Kingdom of Sweden…or should that be the Kingdom of go slow to nowhere?

Sweden is a very odd place to be in, especially when you are Swedish and speak the languages as a native. People expect that you should behave and do things like other Swedes, you see there is no language barrier or physical signs that says that I am a foreigner…but let me tell you when you have been away for over 22 years there are so many changes which you have to take onboard, I feel like a foreigner…The Swedes are supposed to be a clever and hardworking people, who invent things and make bad things better, reliable and sometime not just flat packed.

Well let me tell you that everything is not as it seems. When I lived here here last, the government controlled all the off licenses known here as Systembolaget. They ran it a bit like Argos, you could not browse the store you had to take a number and wait your turn. You then proceeded to a till where you kindly advised the cashier what it was you wanted, selecting it from a small catalogue. The cashier collected the items you paid and left. What was the reason for this system? Well one idea was that Swedes should not be tempted by the variety of bottles, browsing could lead to alcoholism and God forbid theft… Now 20 years later the Systembolaget has, as I found out at my last visit there, become adult. It allows the customers browse the store pick up their selection themselves and then pay for it at the check out…pretty normal for anyone who lives in Europe and beyond.
I believed that this would be the last time I saw the ticket machine queuing system, you see Systembolaget also believed that Swedes were unable to form an orderly queue without a fight…

So what do I now find when I enter “normal” stores, if not a bloody ticket machine…everywhere…you cannot move or do anything unless you have a bloody number!!

In every store there are Swedes standing around waiting…waiting for their turn to pay for their medicine, their clothes even bloody H&M have a ticket machine….thousands of Swedes are standing around like sheep in a pen waiting for their number to be called…what a bloody joke. Imagine at Primark back in The Greatest Britain you pick you clothes up and then walk up to a till and say, “could I pay for these?” and the bloody stupid person behind the till says “Do you have a ticket?” “There is no-one else around so let me pay for these and then I’ll be off.” “No sir you must have a ticket.” When you then have located a ticket machine you find out that a busload of happy shoppers has entered the shop and they have all taken a ticket, and the stupid “bingo-like sign” says “We are now serving number 78” and your ticket says 106…which means at least 30 minutes wait…idiots…
This is why the Swedes are so good at inventing things they have hours of just standing around thinking about making things better…apart from a better queuing system…

Swedes are the least service minded people on earth; they even tell me that the service in The Greatest Britain is good for heavens sake…

Well I am not going to go by the flow so I have now banned Mrs E from shopping in any stores which use the ticketing system so that means that we now have two stores we ca go to…the local newsagent and the guy who sold us the Christmas tree…doesn’t look too rosy…

Monopoly without means…

Selling a house is not an easy task. Anyone who has been involved in selling their property knows that it is emotionally draining on you. There are so many things to get right in order to achieve the best price and a speedy sale. We recently sold a property in The Greatest Britain, in Gloucestershire to be precise. We believe that we are level headed people who have years of business dealings both domestically and internationally, so the basics were there before we started. Like with most property sales we decided to use the services of an estate agent and called around four of them to give us a valuation and tell us what they thought of the property and its ability to sell. Since our property was a rather large one, we invited specialised estate agents in the local area of Cheltenham to give us their low-down. Three of them had one thing in common, they had all been taken in by a fantasist who bids on properties he cannot afford, the fourth one, the one we choose, had been spared…until now…

After a very busy three weeks of marketing the property a Mr Stephen Chesney, of 104 Welch Road in Cheltenham, came around with his wife Christine to view. He was very enthusiastic, explained that he was a cash buyer, as he had sold his property and could move very quickly. Mr Stephen Chesney went on to explain that he worked in international finance, a former employee of Grant Thornton Chartered Accountants, and he was very keen to proceed. He explained to us and to our estate agent in great detail, how he was going to extend the swimming pool and how his wife enjoyed the large landscaped 3 acre formal garden. At the next viewing they brought their adult daughter along, and then after a third viewing he was ready to strike.

After seeing other people doing second viewings he made an offer, which was rejected. He then made an offer very near the asking price but insisted that we take the property off the market and we accepted and agreed.

Mr Chesney and his wife went to a solicitor known to our estate agent, presented and formally identified themselves, arranged for a surveyor to do a survey and then signed the contract. This is when his story started to fall apart. It turned out that the money he was bringing in from the British Virgin Islands, via his “agent” Pendragon in London, was delayed. He apologised and explained that whilst he had been putting money into BVI he had never brought money back into the UK. We now know why…he didn’t have any…!!!

However, he went on to explain that his money was on a 14 working day call back, which meant that he could not pay the deposit as ALL of his money was coming in at the same time, so no exchange of contracts could be done. When he was asked if he could find a nominal sum for the exchange he also failed to do this. We smelled a rat and decided to remarket the property even though Mr Chesney (of 104 Welch Road, in Cheltenham) insisted he would have the money on the 7th of November. The 7th of November came and went and Mr Chesney explained that there was a problem with his agent Pendragon (if I worked for Pendragon I would get in contact with him and sue him for defomation, contact details below) as they had made a screw up…another week went by and still no money so we decided to make some calls…

We started by calling the estate agents who we had invited around to value the house, three of them had dealt with him in the past two years. He made offers on properties in the range of £800,000 - £1,250,000, then when it came to the crunch, he could not come up with the money, wasting a lot of time for people who were trying to sell their homes.

This fantasist has in the last two years put in offers on at least 8 known properties in the Gloucestershire and Worcestershire area all with the same story… money is abroad, Pendragon is not doing their job and so forth. In addition to this, at least two surveyors have been conned by him as he writes “rubber cheques”, he even wrote out a cheque to a solicitors firm for £174.00 which bounced.

So all in all we lost two months of valuable time selling our property. Mr Chesney, we found out, lives in an ex-council house at 104 Welch Road on a sprawling estate in Cheltenham, a pretty grotty place to live by all accounts when you claim to have millions in an offshore account. His wife is either as deranged as him or she is being fooled, together with the rest of his family. What wife would agree to buy 8 properties only to be told that it has fallen through again!!!

I am writing this as I have reported him to the police for gaining entry to our home under false pretences, and in the hope that he gets known enough so he cannot do it again to someone else…he has no funds to buy the properties he puts offers in for, and the expression “Walter Mitty” comes to mind...

If you wish to check his story out he can be contacted at the following;

Stephen Chesney
Telephone +44 1452 574 001
Mobile +44 7905 734 077
Email stephenchesney@aol.com

It should be noted that this clown will always outbid any other offer with his monopoly money…

Finally we found another buyer, however when their surveyor arrived it transpired that he to had been paid a "rubber cheque" when Stephen Chesney hired him for another property earlier this year. Luckily we sold to someone who had real money so all is well…Stephen Chesney though is not…

Picture © Woodsy

Major problem...they fought back...

I am moving so it is OK for me to say what I intend to say. Having just watched a programme about Tony Blair, on the TGBBC (The Greatest British Broadcasting Corporation) about his time being the Prime Minster of The Greatest British Government, one particular question was asked by the interviewer.

Interviewer: Mr Blair….Is it fair to say that you did not have an exit strategy when you decided to engage in war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq?

Mr. Blair (former Prime Minster of The Greatest Britain): That is not fair to say…we did have a strategy, including an exit strategy but we did not count on that the Iraqis, would fight back….

My shortest entry yet, but something which does not need an explanation….

Give me some bloody strength…

Welcome post number 100 and thank you for still reading...

Many things have irritated me lately and I am not a violent man but right know I want to use my right to kill…and trust me…knowledge is not an issue, many squirrels, birds and foxes have met their untimely death in my hands…however today I am looking at a bigger prey namely the “Eurocrats”.

Before you switch over and go off on a rant and rave telling me that this is old hat, and we all have a grudge against the “Eurocrats”, I might just be able to enlighten you that you are wrong…I am Swedish man, boy to some, and I know the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius. I also know how to buy bananas by the pound or by the kilo. I understand when weatherman says it is going to be 100 degrees and by God do I know that I will not fry to death as he is talking in Fahrenheit…The Greatest Britain has been shouting for years how to keep their pound and ounces system and I felt fine, go ahead, I am Swedish so I can work it out.
Ask a Greatest British Man about buying half a kilo of potatoes and he is baffled…there must be a mental block in their heads allowing them to convert the weight. Nor do they have a clue about speed…is it 70 or 110? “Well it is anyone’s guess they say”, and go for it until they either drive off the road…on the wrong side…or get stopped by the plod (The Greatest British Traffic Police).

Well now for the first time in many years I start to feel and sympathize with the “GBM” (Greatest British Man) because I have heard that they are going to get rid of the Kilogram…Can you believe it? This is how it is going to work…

Standard experts from 100 nations…how could you even find “Experts” from 100 nations which deal with standardisation? They are going to discuss the issue in Paris, which is like a political wart on the European Political Map…the most excellent place to place it as they are either going to wave the white flag, in surrender, or decide that we are all gay and we cannot talk about it.

Enter dipstick number Uno, a Swede by the name of Anders Thor from the Swedish Standards Institute…”The Kilogram has to change name as it is not systematic to keep it…what an idiot…not systematic for whom?

On Monday the 12th November they are going to decide if four of the seven units used, are going to be changed, the four up for discussion are;

Kilogram: A measure of weight…for my Greatest British friends a Kilogram of potatoes is 2.2lb
Mol: The total length of a lamp, from top of bulb to bottom of base, typically expressed in volt-amperes (VA) see below.
Ampere: The unit of measure of the rate of flow of electric current.
Kelvin: The temperature measurement scale used in the scientific community. Note…Zero K represents absolute zero, and corresponds to minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 273 Celsius.

Right looking at the above and your day…especially when you go to the supermarket buying items like “King Edwards” and say…Gosh is that price in Kg or Lb? Or don’t you remember ALL the confusion buying new light bulbs and the old lady next to you says…I can never remember how many mols I need? Or the vanilla ice-cream packet that says clearly “do not freeze lower than minus 789 degrees”…

Well all I know is that if there is someone spending money on this rubbish then there is to much money flowing around in the EU corridors…are people creating jobs for themselves here? Sorry stupid question!

The above systems have been in place since the 1700’s and not one person has died because the mol on their light bulb was not right…
“Mr Uberstuhbahn Fuhrer” Anders Thor says that many students at universities are “irritated” that we still use them!! Well Mr. Thor use you bloody sledge hammer and knock them back into reality…tell them quite simply…Who cares?

So when you wake up with a Brussels hangover, your mol and Kelvin will be gone and replaced with Gio and Bes, Gio comes from a Giovanni Giorgi...remember him? I think he sang with Pavarotti during the Five Tenors concert?