Dear Mr G,
ABERDEEN STATION LEFT LUGGAGE FACILITY
Thank you for your letter dated 16th September in which you detailed the problems you encountered when using the left luggage facility at Aberdeen station recently.
Having investigated the issues raised in your letter, I would like to offer some explanations as follows:
The reason for the twenty minute absence of the member of staff was due to him taking a comfort break. Within reason, there are no time restrictions placed on how long this will take given that very person is different. Please be assured though that in future another member of staff will cover absences in these circumstances so that normal service can be maintained.
The department of transport dictate that all left luggage at major train stations must be searched in order to minimise the risk of security breaches. This is the reason for the facility being staffed. In the current climate where terrorism is at the forefront of the political agenda, we cannot be complacent about where attacks may take place.
I would also like to thank you for bring to my attention the relaxed nature f the staff employed to work in the left luggage area. I will most certainly be taking this seriously and dealing with those involved appropriately to ensure that in future their behaviour reflects the professionalism of this station.
Finally, I must thank you for sending me the clock/compass which illustrated your points fantastically. However, I feel it is only right that I return this to you.
I do hope that future visits to the station are more successful.
Yours sincerely
The Retail Manager
Aberdeen & Inverness Areas
Now I'll be honest, it was nice of this person to reply to my letter but I honestly did not want that watch/compass back, I was also irritated she did not answer all my questions, I decided to write back to her
Dear Ms Retail Manager
RE: Aberdeen Station Left Luggage Facility
Thanks you for your letter dated 23rd September 2009 regarding my issues with your station. I am grateful you took the time to write back to me as I realise you must be a busy person. However I have to ask,
a comfort break??
This sounds like a cross between nap time and a conjugal visit. You state that there are no restrictions on how long these breaks will take as every person is different? So someone could conceivably take a 3 hour comfort break, just to make sure they are suitably comfortable?
Last weekend I had the misfortune to be working on a Saturday night, at the restaurant in which I am a part time manager. The owner happened to be in, I asked him if I could go for a “comfort break?” he asked if I was going for a wank!
I am a tad disappointed that you did not answer all of the questions I posed to you.
Why was there no change for the lockers?
Why was the attendant only wearing ONE (purple) rubber glove?
Was this a Jacko
Also I really would like to know if you have found anything amusing while searching peoples bags?
I write an online blog (www.TheBlogOfAndyG.com if your interested) and I am planning on publishing our correspondence there (I will of course change your name to protect your privacy) and I believe my readers,(and myself) would be very interested in hearing some of the interesting things you have found in peoples luggage.
Come on..................you know you want to tell me.
There was no need to return the Watch/Compass, this was not sent to you purely to illustrate a point, I genuinely wanted you to have it as a gift.
In all honesty it was given to me as a gift about a year ago and I think its rubbish, I was quite chuffed when I eventually found an inventive way of getting rid of it.
Since you were gracious enough to return the watch/compass, I have sent you another present.
A rubber glove! Now the Attendant will have two!!! I hope the colours don’t clash.
By the way, I was serious when I asked if there were any jobs going? I hope to be a writer one day and I could use the time in the locker room to write my memoirs.
“Tales from the Left Luggage Facility”
How’s that for a title of my first book? If you give me some interesting stories about things found while searching bags I will give you a mention in the acknowledgements and maybe even cut you in for a percentage.
I hope to hear back from you soon.
If you wish to speed up our correspondence please feel free to email me
Kind Regards
Andy G
I have yet to hear anything else from Ms Retail Manager, I expect she is too busy compiling stories for me and trying to find a suitable gift.
Thats all for now
Until Next Time
Have A Nice
Andy G
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To Whom it may concern
Good day, I hope this letter finds you well and that you are having a brilliant day! Sadly my letter is not overly positive, don’t take it personally, I’m sure it's not your fault, I just have some points I would like to raise and I hope you can help!
I recently made a journey from your train station to Blackpool, it was on September 4th, the day the floods stopped all service. Don’t worry I’m not moaning about that. These things happen, you guys coped alright with the situation, perhaps a bit more communication with the customers could have been done, but overall I was just happy to get to where I was meant to be going, (even though I didn’t get there till after 4am! If you want to know more about that then please feel free to read my blog www.TheBlogOfAndyG.com. My complaint is regarding the Luggage locker facility.
When I first discovered you had a locker facility I was well chuffed. This was the perfect situation for me. I am a “mature” student and have class on a Friday afternoon from 1:30pm until 4:30pm and my train is at 5. The lockers were a blessing in disguise. I could leave my stuff there and go to the station as soon as my class was finished, this would save me dragging my heavy bags around college or leaving them at home and hurrying around later.
Due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to drop my bags off in the morning as I originally planned. I managed to get to the station around 12:55 pm, this was still good timing for me, all I needed to do was stick my bags in a locker, pick up a couple of things in town and head to class. That’s loads of time, I could probably squeeze in a quick beer too (I am a student after all).
Back in 5 minutes? Why? Why was this locked? What if I had a train to catch? What if my train was in 2 minutes? What would I do then? Fortunately it was only 12:55pm, so even if this sign only went up 10 seconds ago I would still have plenty of time.
I am sorry to report that this sign was not accurate. By the time someone appeared it was 1:15pm. That’s 20 minutes from the time I arrived!! I wonder what time the sign actually went up? When the staff member appeared he greeted me with a grunt and opened the door. He said all bags have to searched. This is not a problem but it was taking up valuable time, which I did not have! May I ask why do all the bags have to be searched? Is this for security reasons? Why would someone want to blow up Aberdeen train station? Is someone trying to set up a rival station in the city?
As I said I did not expect someone to search my bags, I suspect most people do not anticipate this, I would be interested in hearing what your staff have discovered in bags while searching them? A severed human head perhaps? A gold fish? A life size blow up doll? I imagine it would be quite funny sometimes.
I must ask, why is this area manned? I have used many lockers in my lifetime and I am fairly confident I have the necessary skills to operate one. I am also curious as to your safety measures for staff when conducting the search. The staff member who searched my bag only wore ONE rubber glove. Why one? He was clearly using both hands. Is this due to budget cuts? Perhaps it is a tribute to the recently deceased Michael Jackson? After he conducted the search he placed my bags in a locker and told me it was £3, of course the exact contents of my wallet came to exactly £2.99. Fortunately I had a £5 note in my wallet, I grabbed it and handed it over, he gave me a rather blank expression and said, “We don’t have change here.” What? Why not? There is a staff member there, why not give him a small bucket of change. I was instructed to go to the WH Smith around the corner. Is this some kind of arrangement you have going with WH SMITH? I was forced to go round there and buy a chocolate bar I did not want, (I’m watching my figure) in order to get change. That is ridiculous. I suspect this staff member may have the easiest job known to man, when I returned he was not exactly hard at work. I have re enacted this pose for you in the picture below.
And you are paying someone for this job???
If this is the case I would very much like to put forward my C.V. for consideration. I most definitely have the skills required and believe I would easily make employee of the month.
By the time I left the locker area it was after 1:20pm and I had to RUN (and I mean RUN! I am not in the best of shape and this was not a pleasant experience for me.) to get to class. Despite my best athletic effort I was still late for my lecture and this caused me to make a very embarrassing entrance and disrupt the class.
When I returned later I half expected the staff member to be having a nap behind the desk, or see yet another post it note saying “gone for a pint.” It was not the same person I had dealt with in the afternoon but he obviously shares the same skill set, I have re-enacted his pose in the picture below.
Obviously a more 21st century man, he was playing on his Sony PSP! (Sadly I do not own a PSP so I have substituted my i-phone for the purposes of this photograph.) Is this what staff are meant to be doing during working hours?
I would like to ask why is the luggage area staffed? If someone is not intelligent enough to use a locker then they really shouldn’t be allowed out on there own. If it does have to be staffed, then you must stick to your guns and have it manned at ALL TIMES. If when I initially arrived I was meant to be picking up my bag to catch a train I most likely would have missed it! Why was this area closed for at least 20 minutes? I gave this some thought and these are my top 3 theories, if any of them are correct please let me know:
1. The staff member had to go to the toilet (if he is away for that long please tell him to seek medical attention.)
2. He got lost.
3. He does not have a watch and lost track of time.
Sadly if theory number one is correct I cannot help, however if theory number 2 or 3 is correct then it’s your lucky day! I am sure you found your gift I included in the envelope.
It’s a keyring consisting of a watch,
and if you lift up the clock, it’s a compass!
YES that right, DOUBLE BUBBLE!!!
You are most welcome.
I hope you enjoy the gift and I hope next time I use your luggage facilities I will not have to wait for 20 minutes when I am in a hurry.
I hope you enjoyed this letter and I look forward to your response. If you wish to get me a gift in return for the watch/compass please feel free to do so. (You don’t want any bad karma now do you?)
Kind Regards
Andy G
(irritated train passenger)
Hi
Hows it goin?
At time of writing i still don't have the internet in my fucken flat. Sky are bastards!!! So at the moment I am sitting in starbucks using there internet waiting for the latest episodes of all my geeky tv shows to download. Sadly its gonna take another hour or so so I thought I'd write some more bollocks for the 6 people who read this.
The other week I had my first big test. I realised it’s the first important academic test I’ve taken for around a decade. Yes an actual decade!! Fuck me I am getting old.
I even have a few lighter coloured hairs in my beard. Someone tried to convince me I was going grey, I think I'm turning blonde, I'm just a late bloomer.
Anyway
My test was in my law in the communication industries class. It was all about Defamation in the media. I’m not gonna bore you with the ins and outs of defamation, your probably already having a very boring day, hence the reason your reading all the shit I happened to be writing. Ill give you a brief description tho, so u know what I'm on about.
Defamation basically means you can’t slag some one off. There was a case a couple of years ago involving Tommy Sheridan and the news of the world. The paper claimed he attended swingers parties, he slept with prostitutes, and spent the night in an Aberdeen hotel with a journalist and got drunk in the hotel bar before hand. They claimed his political party forced him out as leader. Tommy sued for defamation because he claimed this was untrue and damaging to his reputation. He won the case and was awarded around £200 grand, or something around that.
When we arrived at our usual shambles of a wednesday afternoon law class our teacher was in her trademark grumpy mood. I was fully expecting to get my test results and move onto the next subject we’re meant to be covering. However the teacher had other plans. She went over every question in the assessment and told us what we should have put for our answers. Apparently out of 30 people in the class, only 2 had passed the exam.
Only 2?
Surely one of them must be me? I spent fucking hours making my notes, we were allowed to take notes into the exam so I made notes in my extra special very neat hand writing I save for special occasions. It took me HOURS! I knew I had to quote from specific cases we had studied and the exact definition of certain defence strategies so I made very detailed notes, so much so I ran out of ink in my pen.
After the teacher went over the entire test she then handed them back to us, as she walked round the room I heard a chorus of “This is bullshit!” and “Fuck it! I hate this class anyway” I sat there quietly confident, I knew I must have passed, I knew this subject inside out and back to front.
Eventually she came to me
“very good but you missed out the Rixa defence in question 2” she commented
THE FUCKEN RIXA DEFENCE???!!!
When defending against defamation there are a number of strategies you can use. The least used strategy is called RIXA, you can use the Rixa defence if the defamatory statement was made while you were beside yourself with anger you had no control over what you were saying. This defence has not been used successfully since 1845, so of course I didn’t mention it in my answer, why would I mention that? What are the chances that this defence would be successful?
Ill tell you.
There is NO FUCKEN CHANCE!!!
Anyway she gave us back the test papers, I’m fairly certain she thinks we are all fucken retarded as she told us all the answers before she returned the papers and then told us to make the necessary corrections and hand them back in.
At this point a lot of my class looked panicked as they clearly had not been paying attention when she was going over the answers.
I knew exactly what I had to do, I re wrote one of my answers and included the Rixa defence and handed it back to her, this took me all of 3 minutes, and that is all the work I did in that class, The class lasts for nearly 2 hours and I only did 3 minutes of work.
The rest of my time I occupied by doing this
I came up with some new defence strategies to be used in the courtroom. Since Rixa (pronounced Ricksa) has not been successful in over 150 years maybe its time to try something new. Like one of these:
TWIXA: The defendant has twix’s hurled at them.
BRIXA: The Defendant is bricked up inside the witness box and not allowed to leave until the truth is revealed.
LIXA: The Defendant gets licked by an unattractive member of the opposite sex until the truth is revealed.
DIXA: This defence is used involving defamation in the porn industry.
CHIXA: The Defendant gets chickens hurled at them.
MIXA: The Defendant is forced to listen to really shit dance music mixes.
JIGXA: The Defendant is forced to do a 100000 piece jigsaw puzzle, (with 3 piece’s missing) they are not allowed to stop until the truth is revealed.
FIXA: The Defendant can ask if Jim’ll fix it? This defence is rarely used as no one wants to sit on his lap.
TRIXA: Paul Daniels appears to take over the defence team, and dazzles you with magic.
PIXA: The case is put on hold while everyone watches pixar movies, toy story is most common
VIXA: The Defendant covers themself in vix vapour rub, howls like a hungry dog and runs out of the building, this usually works as everyone is so baffled by this behaviour.
WIXA: David Wicks From Eastenders replaces the defence team.
STIXA: The Dispute is settled by the two opposing parties hitting each other with a big stick.
KICKXA: The Defendant is kicked really hard in the shin.
KENTUCKY
FRIED
CHIXA: The Defendant is forced to eat nothing but Kentucky fried chicken until the truth is revealed.
PRIXA: The Defendant gets called a prick until they break down and the truth is revealed.
I did my test,
for my law class.
I did my best,
I got a pass!
I studied hard,
I made lots of notes.
I’m such a retard,
with these stupid anecdotes.
My life isn’t really very exciting
A life of boredom is what I am fighting!
I’m going out tonight,
I’ll get quite drunk
I’ll talk lots of shite
And spread my funk.
By that I mean I’m going to dance
Nothing involving my underpants.
Thats all for now,
until next time
Have a nice
Andy G
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