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Well I've been back from Corfu for almost a week now. The tan is slowly fading and my Corfu arse is slowly getting back to normal
At least the weather has been nice. I wasn't looking forward to leaving the 30+ degree heat, to be thrust into normal British weather, but this week has done it's best to let me down gently

The busy period at work begins next week. It will now be arses and elbows until at least mid-November, so I'm glad I had a couple of weeks to relax and think about nothing other than where we're going to eat

Blogging should resume after the weekend. Probably. It's still so hard to care at the moment

Threat level, high!

Well we had an interesting day. We set off earlier for a 3km walk to the next village, but half way there the heavens opened and we got soaked.

We nipped into a bar called Stephano's Place, to get a brew and dry off. The girl serving brought us towels and because my t-shirt was so wet, she gave me another one. It's two sizes too small and has the name of the bar on the front and back. I've been mistaken for a local twice, since putting it on

We completed the journey after a while, but got lost in the town. A random taxi driver stopped by touting for business, so we got a lift back

About half an hour ago, we were sat on the balcony eating a takeaway pizza, when both our phones went off with a wierd siren noise. I looked and the screen was flashing "Emergency Alert". After reading it, it turned out to be a weather warning for storms this evening

It frit the shit out of both of us. I thought we were under nuclear attack or something

I've never seen anything like that before and in my opinion, if it's not impending armageddon, it's just not worth it

The adrenaline has calmed down now and were looking forward to the lightshow that is a good Corfu thunderstorm

Yamoose!

Myself and Mrs Bucko are currently on holiday in Corfu, so blogging will be non-existant for the next week and a half, unless I put something up about how hot it is, how red I am or how much I had to drink last night

 

So you heard about alll the commotion going on at Manchester airport, with the massive queues and the angry chavs missing their flights? Kids Christmas ruined and compo faces akimbo?

 

Well it's realy nothing to worry about. That is, if you're flying at 15:00 from terminal 3, it's nothing to worry about. I can't speak from experience for any other time or terminal

 

We'd been advised to turn up four or even five hours before the flight, but also told that people turning up too early were adding to the chaos. We decided to stick to the official advice and arrive three hours early.

We also added an extra hour on to our drive time as it was Thursday, a once in a lifetime bank holiday.

 

As it turned out, the traffic was lighter than normal and we didn't need the extra hour, so we were four hours early to the airport

We queued up at the Ryanair (Ugh!) check-in and 45 minutes later, we had bags checked and were outside again smoking a fag

 

I spoke to a guy on security about their waiting times and he advised to go to security at least an hour and fifteen minutes before out flight

 

We had to toss up between going through security hideously early in the only terminal where you can't smoke after security, but can have a beer, or sit for two hours outside the terminal doing nothing but smoking fags. In the end we decided to go through security and get a beer

Another 45 minutes later and we were through security and in the bar. And looking at the longest queue I've ever seen in my life, not just the airport. Two guys having a pint told us it took them an hour and fifteen minutes to get served. We looked for another option, but there was none, so I joined the queue

It's no wonder it was taking so long to deal with the queue, there were only two staff on the bar. One of them kept wandering off and the other was a huge land whale who only moved at one pace, which was bordering on stopping and falling asleep

I was about fifteen minutes from the end of the queue when a young lad approached me and offered to buy my drink if I ordered his at the same time. I explained I was buying four pints and he readily agreed to pay for all of them if I ordered six pints for him and his mates

I went to the bar, ordered ten pints and then shouted, "Here yar mate, will you give us a lift taking these back?", so it didn't look like he was jumping the queue. I took my four and left him to take his six and sort the bill. Saved me a furtune at those prices and saved him an hour in the queue

Anyhoo, the plane was delayed for fifty minutes after we taxied, but it was clear skies and plain sailing after that. Ryanair (Ugh!) even did their job pretty well and we had a pleasant flight

According to Greek law, you still have to wear a facemask on public transport, and according to Ryanair law, you have to wear one on the plane if that is the law in the destanation country. There were multiple announcements before we took off, about the requirement to wear a mask over your nose and moth for the whole flight and about being kicked off mid-air if you don't. I only noticed about four people who did wear a mask and the cabin staff did not beother anyone about it, which was nice

We have a rule when we arrive on holiday. One waits for the cases and the other goes outside the airport for a smoke. We got to the carousel and I reminded Mrs Bucko that it was her turn to go out. She said there was no point as our cases were already here. It took less time to get off the plane and out of the airport than it did to get a pint in Manchester

Ten O'Clock we were in a taxi, almost there when we spotted two friends who live in Corfu, sat in a bar at the end of the road, so we quickly dumped our cases and walked down to have a quick pint with them. I thought Mrs B had told them we were coming, but she hadn't, so it was a total surprise and a quick pint became very messy. I don't know what time we got back to the apartment, but I was rough as arseholes in the morning

I was so hungover, I couldn't stay in bed, but wasn't fit to put the kettle on or even open the fridge, so I just went to the bar and sat with Kostas, our host, while he served me a long diet of water, coffee, juice and local gossip

By the time I was compus enough to function in polite society, I asked him for the bill, but he let me off all of it as, in his words, it was, "An emergency situation". You gotta love the Greeks. They can be the friendliest people on Earth once you scratch the surface

I also made another schoolboy error the following day. Factor 6 suncream in 36 degree heat while I still had nothing but my English winter tan. Fortunately it wasn't as bad as blistering, but it's been quite painful to wear a shirt for a few days and also to have a shower, so my personal hygiene has been questionable to say the least. When it's this hot, washing yourself in the sink just doesn't cut it

Well it's day six now. The hangover is a distant memory, the skin has healed to a manageable and more importantly, showerable extent, my Corfu arse is in full effect and I'm in that perfect holiday mood where it's just so hard to care about anything and I can't remember a time when I was ever cold

So if anything interesting happens, I might let you know, but it's not looking likely. Until then, TTFN

Idiots with First World Problems

I'm sure everyone would like their fifteen minutes of fame, but the lame ways in which some people get theirs, often baffle

Grandad forced to do school run in the rain after waiting a year for £37k Land Rover

Savvy enough to be able to afford a brand new £37k Land Rover, but not intelligent enough to buy a £500 Toyota Corolla to keep him going while he waits for it to be built?

Asked if he would give up and get another car, Michael said he had five grandchildren and needed a seven-seater.

Oh, my mistake. A £750 Volkswagen Sharan, then

Or six umbrellas...

Another police chief who doesn't understand the job

Ban text scammers from buying Sim cards without ID, says policing chief

And how does he plan to make that happen? Have all shop staff asking potential customers if they are scammers, then asking for ID when they answer in the affirmative?

Unfortunately the article is behind a paywall, but what this misguided supreme copper is asking, is for everybody to be made to give ID when buying a phone or sim card

Typical lazy policing. Make everyone jump through hoops in the hopes of preventing the odd crime so the police don't actually have to do much work

I once bought a ready to go PAYG phone off the shelf and was asked for my name and address, which I refused to give. The guy said he could not process the sale without it and I said there's nothing to process, I have cash and I don't need it delivered. In the end he managed to figure out a way

ID May have not been compulsory back then, but I've long been under the impression it has for some years, but I've bought all my phones on Ebay since

It's good to now know ID is not required, but it's bad to know a senior police officer is demanding it and newspapers are giving him the time of day

If he were to get his way, there's a million ways scammers could get round it and as per usual, it's only the consumer who will be inconvenienced while nothing else changes

We're gonna need a tinier violin

Apparently we're in the midst of a cost of living crisis and the economy appears to be hitting the fan. It seemed inevitable when we were paying people to stay at home for moths to avoid spreading a cold, that it would come back and bite us on the arse, but fortunately for our illustrious leaders, some shit went down in the Ukraine that we can blame it all on

Complaining about the ineptitude of the Government isn't going to stem the tide of rising prices and inflation though, we're all going to have to tighten our belts a bit, cut back where we can and weather the storm

Unless of course we are whinging scroungers living off the taxpayers teat, whose idea of saving for a rainy day is getting up the duff again, so the Welfare will send a bigger cheque

I can’t afford to heat a pizza for my son – this is the reality of Britain’s cost of living crisis

This article in the Guardian, is so bad, I'm actually going to recommend you go and find something better to do for the next five minutes, rather than read my post about it

Still here? Ok, prepare for a mis-mash of illogic, denial, downright bullshit and whinging of the highest order (Or just another day at the office, for the Guardian)

My son sat on the stairs of our home crying on Monday, and for once I had no more words.

If only that were the case, but unfortunately she found plenty of words to fill an essay of total drivvle

I could not justify my decision to not cook his tiny, budget pizza [...] I didn’t feel able to cook it because it would cost too much to turn the oven on for this one small thing.

I must be wrong, but it seems she's telling us her idiot spawn was crying because she force-fed him a raw (tiny, budget) pizza. And she's trying to get sympathy for that

I can only assume she bought the tiny budget pizza before the cost of living crisis kicked in. If she knew she couldn't afford to cook it at the time, she'd surely have bought him something that can be eaten cold, like a tiny budget sandwich

My 12-year-old son has additional needs and significant sensory processing issues. He has not been in school for almost five months and I am his full-time, unpaid carer.

He's your kid. You don't get paid for looking after your own children. Maybe if you'd brought him up with a bit of discipline, he wouldn't have all those made up disorders and he could be in school while you're earning some money, perish the thought

If he was in school, at least they would be cooking his tiny budget school dinners

I am currently claiming universal credit

No shit? You do surprise me

We watch in disbelief as the government continues to fail to support families like mine...

You're on universal credit and don't work. Everything you have is paid for by the Government and you don't call that support? I yearn for the day the Government will start to support the hard pressed taxpayer, by letting them keep some more of what they earn

as we are told by politicians that food-bank users just need to learn how to cook...

Shove it in the tiny budget oven on gas mark 7, until the tiny budget cheese bubbles

or those in working poverty just need to get better-paid jobs.

Any job, would be a start

How dare they gloss over rising food-bank use as if it’s normal in one of the richest countries in the world. How dare those in power tell us how to spend the appallingly low budgets we receive on social security

My son cried more than once last winter because he was cold

We didn't have a cost of living crisis last winter. Maybe you're just a bad mother?

My son’s response about the tiny pizza was tears and rage at the inequality of it all. As staff at energy companies receive millions in bonuses, we can’t afford to heat a budget pizza. When I said to him that that this is why we need to speak out and help people, he told me through his rage: “I can’t help the people mummy, I am the people.”

Maybe instead of fostering jealousy in your son of non-existent staff getting non-existent million pound bonuses, you could explain to him the decisions you made that put you both in the tiny budget situation you currently find yourselves in?

And if you think I believe he said that stuff about being the people, you're having a larf

And he is right, we are the people you must listen to

Sorry, I've already lost interest

I believe JuliaM also has the story

*Rummage*

Ah yes, here it is