Friday 27 September 2019

The Accidental Thief

I accidentally stole a Twix today.

There’s a Tesco just up the road from where I work. I have mentioned it many times before. Usually in the context that accessing it using a wheelchair is on a par with trying to get into Mordor to destroy The Precious. The shop floor is below street level so if you are not a stairs person - and I most definitely am not a stairs person in the same way that Boris Johnson is most definitely not an integrity person - you have to use the small lift by the door. The problem is it frequently fails to work. I think the current record for its uselessness stands at around six months. Six months in which ‘it’s been reported’ was there go to mantra. For a long time I gave up and resorted to Bargain Booze a little further on. Dark times.

Currently, however, the lift at Tesco works. We are in the midst of a golden age in which it has been possible for a wheelchair user to access Tesco on Tithebarn Street every day for ooh….at least the last three months. What a time to be alive. I go there to buy my lunch, principally because I am too lazy to either make a sandwich the night before or to get up a little bit earlier to do it in the morning. And also because we don’t always have packets of Mini Cheddars in the house whereas Tesco seems to have an endless supply. I must be the only person buying them.

Today I needed to buy some drinks. We haven’t got any in the house until we get the shopping delivery. We are well past the point where either myself or Emma actually goes into a supermarket to do a proper shop. Smaller supermarkets are fine if you are just going in to buy your Mini Cheddars and accidentally steal the odd Twix, but the larger stores are infested with Other People and those awful self-service machines. And that after you have spent half your life looking for a disabled parking bay that is not occupied by a boy-racer who has stopped off before he goes dogging in Sherdley Park or a rich person who considers themselves too important to adhere to parking regulations. There are a disproportionate number of Jaguars, Mercedes and other types of what are known locally as ‘posh cars’ in disabled bays in my experience. Oh, by the way, those of you who read my last entry will be relieved to know that I have stopped haemorrhaging cash at parking meters with the long-awaited arrival of my blue badge! Hurrah, and all that. Except that officially and according to the blue badge admin bods I am only disabled until the end of January 2020 which is as long as they have proof of my receipt of Personal Independence Payment. PIP PIP. Presumably at the end of January the miracle will be on and I will have no business claiming disability benefit. Looking forward to that.

Since I needed drinks I thought I would buy a handy six-pack of Coke. Knowing that they are quite bulky I knew I would have problems carrying them along with my sandwich (standard smoked ham and cheddar), the mandatory Mini Cheddars and the soon-to-be-accidentally stolen Twix. I put the latter in my coat pocket. It has been raining pretty much all day in Liverpool so the big coat is a must, especially with tonight’s almost important playoff between Saints and Wigan to consider also.

The problem is that when I picked up all of the other items on my modest list I completely forgot to take the Twix out of my pocket. It was an extra large one too. The Twix, that is, not the pocket. None of your standard fare. It wasn’t until I got back to work and reached into my coat pocket for my staff badge which operates the security doors that lead towards the office, that I felt the Twix and remembered that I hadn’t paid for it. I was mortified. I felt like some latter day Oliver Twist. Had I noticed earlier I would have gone back into the store and apologised and paid for it. But I had made it all the way back to the office by then. The journey to Tesco from the office is not long but it involves the ascent of a ramp that is about as much fun as my job. Taking into account my level of knackered-ness (I will be having that kidney transplant within the next few months) and the woeful state of the weather I decided against going back. They have made it even more difficult anyway because during the process of demolishing the flyovers in the city centre that has caused all manner of disruption around the building they have installed what they think are accessible drop-downs to the pavements. What they are in reality is ramps leading up to the lip of the kerb, so you have to push up the little ramp and then have enough momentum to get over the lip. I would rather just bump up a kerb from a flat surface. Someone with lesser chair skills than I, and I believe such people exist, will end up on their arse on Primrose Hill. Which sounds like a Coming Of Age movie starring Tom Hanks. On Their Arse On Primrose Hill. Emma Thompson would definitely take a role.

So I didn’t go back. I ate the Twix with my lunch and it tasted all the sweeter for the fact that I had stuck it to the corporate Man. My guilt is real but is tempered by all the times I have been unable to access the store because of the broken lift. In addition I've heard it said that disabled people need to be watched carefully in shops because they steal things. Apparently we are buggers for putting items for which we have not paid under the cushions of our seats and casually floating out of the door. I have never, ever done this, but I feel like I am tarred with this brush anyway. And now, accidentally, I have contributed to the stereotype. Confirmed the lazy prejudice.

It was only a Twix, but I am slightly surprised that a corporate bully like Tesco can allow this to happen. I would have expected some sort of alarm to go off, possibly one that speaks in the style of other modern technology in lifts and so forth. It might say something like ‘staff member to main entrance, a biff has stolen a Twix’ which it could just repeat until the filthy cushion-hider has been apprehended. They are surely missing a trick but then again, given that they have only just figured out a way of getting wheelchair users into their store on a consistent basis it is expecting a bit much for them to have developed a security system which prevents us stealing extra large Twixes.

Wednesday 18 September 2019

Blue Badge Blues

Every so often I get a reminder from Facebook that I haven’t written anything in Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard for a while. It’s probably intended to be polite and helpful but, it being Zuckerberg it feels high-handed and dictatorial. Especially when added to the pressure I put on myself to keep this updated. Occasionally the pressure tells and I start mashing my keyboard. Tonight is one such occasion.

I want to talk to you about blue badges. Readers of my last entry will remember that I went to Rhodes in June. We parked the car at one of Manchester Airport’s many long stay car parks and happily forgot about it for a week. What I had also forgotten, and failed to remember until several days after my return when one of Liverpool City Council’s traffic wardens plonked a £25 penalty charge notice on my windscreen, was that my blue badge had expired. It had in fact expired on June 30, four days before I returned to England and it is blind, dumb luck that none of Manchester City Council’s traffic wardens seemed to notice.

In many ways I wish they had as it would have prompted me to renew it online there and then so I would have it by now. I am now into gruelling Week 11 of the wait for my application to be processed. Who would have thought that it would take longer than a Cricket World Cup? The blurb on the website says it can take between six to 12 weeks which I can only attribute to the suspicion that every chancer waking up with a headache is submitting an application. Most of these might get knocked back. How else can one explain the sheer volume of motorists parking in blue badge spaces outside their local Tesco without blue badges? Perhaps the government should solve this problem by just handing them out to everyone who passes a driving test.

The fact that so many drivers use blue badge spaces illegally and without any consequences makes my fines (I’ve had another one since, I never learn) all the more galling. My fines have come from parking at work. There is currently a ludicrous amount of work going on in the area as those city centre flyovers made almost famous by Sky One’s Sean Bean car-race fiasco ‘Curfew’ are being demolished. All of which leaves almost no adequate parking, and less than none if you are a wheelchair user whose blue badge has expired. I was chancing it in my employer’s own blue badge spaces but they have since become a victim of the ongoing work. You can park free with a blue badge in the street parking outside the entrance to the building but if you forgot to renew the bloody thing then parking there costs £5.20 for four hours.

I’m one of those shocking bastard disabled people who insist on working full time, so when you do the sums I am currently spending £10.40 per day on parking at work. Economy hasn’t been this false since Manchester United paid Alexis Sanchez £300,000 a week. I have twice spoken to St Helens Council about my blue badge application and after an embarrassing attempt to fudge the situation by claiming they hadn’t received my email containing the information they requested I managed to get them to reveal that my badge would be with me within five to 10 working days. That was last Tuesday, September 10. St Helens is behind the times in many ways. It must have the smallest number of actual shops per square mile of any town bar fucking Westeros but I hadn’t realised they’d converted to a two-day working week.

About that information they requested anyway. I was born with Spina Bifida (despite autocorrect’s attempts to make that Sonia Bifida) 44 years ago. Spina Bifida is like that sly, smug look on Laura Kuenssberg’s face. It’s permanent. Yet every three years I am required to submit documentary evidence that I am in receipt of whatever shambolically conceived disability benefit is in vogue at the time. At the moment it’s PIP (Personal Independence Payment) but who knows what it will be next time around. Whatever it is called even this sociopath-led Tory fuckwit government will be hard pushed to doubt my credentials for it. There is no cure on the way and even if there was why should I bother? My biggest disability is the inability of government and society to make life physically and socially accessible. It’s easier and no doubt cheaper to build trains with level access and put lifts in all buildings than it is to develop and build ludicrous exo-skeletons to haul riff-raff like me to my feet. Stop trying to fucking fix me and get your own house in order. In the meantime can we not just write down the names of all the permanently disabled blue badge applicants on....oh I don’t know a census or wherever the data from that 20-page PIP application form they send out every year is stored so that those of us with conditions which are about as likely to change as the plot of a Rambo movie won’t have to go through this charade!

So there we are. Eight hundred words on how my carelessness means my employment is currently not cost effective topped off nicely with another epic rail against society and, most deservedly of all, those demonic fucking Tories. If that isn’t Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard, Mr Zuckerberg, what is?

Monday 9 September 2019

Saints 48 Huddersfield Giants 6 - The Verdict

It was a good night’s work for Saints as they showed something like their best form at times during this 48-6 pounding of Huddersfield Giants.

The win was Saints’ 25th from 28 regular season Super League game’s assuring that they hit the 50-point mark on the league table and remained unbeaten at home throughout the campaign. It is the first time that Saints have gone unbeaten at home in the regular season since 2002. It bodes well for an appearance at Old Trafford for this year’s Grand Final as Justin Holbrook’s side only need to win one of a possible two playoff games at home to get there.

This was a useful and much-needed tune-up. Doubts had crept in around Saints’ form with the catastrophic defeat to Warrington at Wembley followed by what the coach would no doubt call a ‘scratchy’ 4-0 success over Castleford Tigers last week. This was much more like the Saints we have seen throughout the bulk of 2019 with eight tries run in by seven different scorers and only one allowed in reply. Saints have now conceded only two tries in two and a half games - that’s 200 minutes - since that fraught first half at Wembley. Defence will be key to determining which team lifts the Super League trophy on October 12 and there doesn’t look to be too much wrong with how the back-to-back League Leaders have defended their line recently.

Offensively the fun started early as Alex Walmsley put Luke Thompson over inside the first few minutes. For all the flair and razzle-dazzle on show from Saints’ backs in 2019 it was heartening to see the two props combine for a neat score. Thompson was monstrous all night for Saints, racking up 165 metres on 17 carries, scoring two tries and making only one error. The tries were a highlight but a first half clean break in which he twisted several Giants defenders inside out before having the ball knocked from his grasp got the fans out of their seats. He and Walmsley are going to be huge for Saints in the latter part of the season, even more so because of the sad news that Matty Lees will miss the rest of the season with a perforated bowel. The club statement on Lees was vague about a possible return date so we wish him all the best for a speedy recovery. Getting back out there is one thing but the priority for Lees right now is his general health after a fairly invasive surgical procedure. He can take inspiration from Walmsley who has returned to his best form after missing the majority of 2018 with a freak neck injury suffered at Warrington.

Regan Grace was next on the scoresheet, benefiting from Theo Fages’ long ball to stroll in. The Frenchman was involved again as he, James Roby and Jonny Lomax combined to put Dominique Peyroux over for Saints’ third try. The fourth was both brilliant and slightly fortuitous as Morgan Knowles executed a perfect show and go to Lomax before racing 50 metres untouched to go over under the posts. The fortunate aspect was that the Welshman - one of eight Saints called into Wayne Bennett’s Great Britain squad this week - very probably dropped the ball in the act of scoring at the west end of the ground. No TV coverage meant no video referee and so none of the debate which erupted when Robert Hicks failed to use the technology for a Knowles effort at Wembley. Marcus Griffiths had to make a decision there and then, but to be fair to him his in-goal judges were about as much use as an English top order batsman.

The one bleak spot for Saints during that first half was the early loss of Mark Percival. The centre is another who has been selected for Great Britain this week but he didn’t last long in this one, running into the immovable object that is Jermaine McGillvary. Percival went for an HIA from which he did not return and now must be doubtful for the trip to Hull FC which rounds off Saints’ regular season campaign next weekend. Percival had looked threatening in the few minutes he spent on the field but had to be replaced by James Bentley, a man whose versatility is currently earning him game time even if I have a slight fear that it will work against him from time to time. He has played in the centre for Leigh Centurions in the Championship while on dual registration but lacks the pace and the hands to mix it with Super League’s best in that position. Nevertheless he again let nobody down, carrying the ball 11 times for 72 metres and getting through 24 tackles in defence.

Saints started the second half sloppily and should be concerned about an error count of 18 which matched the total which did so much damage to their hopes of winning at Wembley. On this occasion it was Coote who spilled possession and from the next set the Giants got their only score of the night when Michael Lawrence barged his way over from close range. It was a rare lapse for Saints’ goal-line defence on a night when they cut their missed tackle count from a whopping 51 in the win over Castleford last week to just 21 this week. It is a curious anomaly that they managed to shut the Tigers out in that game while conceding a try this week. Still, Holbrook will be pleased with how his team is defending as we get to the business end of the season.

It took 15 minutes after the break for Saints to kick their attack back into gear. Errors on three consecutive sets by Walmsley, Taia and Kyle Amor held them back before the Cumbrian forward took Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook’s pass to plunge over to give Saints a 30-6 lead. It was McCarthy-Scarsbrook’s second assist having put Knowles away for his try earlier and capped a quality performance from the Londoner. He doesn’t get many plaudits in this column but you have to tip your hat to a performance which included 108 metres on 10 carries, a couple of offloads to go with those two assists as well as 22 tackles on defence. Only some desperate gang-tackling from the Giants stopped McCarthy-Scarsbrook from adding a try of his own just two minutes after Amor’s effort. The former Bronco embarked on a seemingly never-ending, winding run to the line only to be hauled down inches short of the line.

Seven minutes later Thompson completed his double thanks to Fages pass, one of two assists on the night for the former Salford and Catalans man who was his usual industrious self on defence with 15 tackles and only one miss. That seems to be the difference between he and Danny Richardson right now in the battle to hold down that starting role at seven alongside the incomparable Lomax. The latter has just been crowned the winner of the Rugby Leaguer and League Express Albert Goldthorpe medal, a kind of Man Of Steel of the rugby league press. After the Express’ decision to snub Saints' League Leaders Shield celebrations in the aftermath of Eamonn McManus’ ill-timed complaints about refereeing standards perhaps this is not something to get too excited about, but there can be no doubt that Lomax is a deserving winner of any individual accolade that comes his way in 2019. It was Lomax who added Saints next try, their seventh, when he scooped up Roby’s unusually wayward pass from dummy half which had been mishandles by Fages. In the moment of confusion Lomax cruised through the Giants defence to notch his 16th try of a season that has also yielded 21 assists, more than any other Super League player bar Jackson Hastings.

Saints’ final try was a refereeing disaster to rival that which allowed Knowles’ effort in the first half. McManus is no doubt furiously scribbling his angry disapproval as I write. Fages was involved again sending Kevin Naiqama tearing away down the south stand touchline only for the cover to reel him in. As he fell to the ground he threw a speculator inside to Tommy Makinson that was so far forward it is unlucky not to have made the cut for the highlights on the various NFL shows that get under way this week with the start of the new season. Makinson was not standing around waiting for the outcome of a committee meeting, plonking it down superbly for his 20th try of the season. It is a measure of how balanced Saints attack has now become with the additions of Coote and Naiqama that Makinson is Saints' top try scorer in 2019. Over on the opposite wing Grace is only one behind on 19.

Amid all the talk from a certain other club about their lot sneaking up on the rails and nicking the title as they did a year ago this was a much needed performance from Saints. A well-timed reminder to those of a cherry and white or primrose and blue persuasion that we are not going away. The only reasons to believe that a repeat of last year could happen are psychological. The defence is as solid as it has been at any time during their imperious march to the League Leaders Shield and on this evidence the attack is not too far away either. The error count will still be a worry for Holbrook but he will also know that if his side play anything like between now and the middle of October then he will finally break the cycle of coming up short in the big knockout games.