This morning I make my way to get the train, short walk probably 1/4 of a mile away from my house. Was reading some mail from the accountants as I walked to catch the train, normal cheery mail, time to pay the government thousands of pounds in tax, yeah it’s coming to the end of July and the Government wants’ it’s protection money.

Anyway I arrive at the station and as I go down the stairs towards the ticket office I check my pocket for my wallet, crap left my wallet in the house no worries always have bunch of pound coins kicking about, crap £1.70 in my pocket. Oh joy have to walk back home, miss this train and come back again. As I about turn to head off, I hear Ian the ticket guy shout “Clarke, did you forget your money” I am like “yeap”, he shouts back “no bother, I will get your tickets for you, can pay me back next time” very decent of Ian as he was issuing my tickets he was like do you want to borrow a score (£20 to you people who don’t understand money slang) I said thanks but I can borrow some money off someone in the office.

Now this got me thinking, how many other places in the UK (keep in mind I live in Glasgow so not a small town) can you go to a train station having forgot your money and the ticket guy offers to pay it for you? Not many I bet, heck I doubt most people even know the name of the person issuing the tickets. How do I know his name, well basically he has been at the station about year and half he issues my ticket without me having to say where I am going, normally conversation is “how you doing”, “not bad”, “here is your ticket Clarke”, “cheers Ian” LOL yes in-depth stuff but fact he could be bothered to remember my ticket was enough for him to get a small Christmas Present last year, 2 bottles of wine in a box… Now you may be thinking hang on you gave the ticket guy a Christmas Present, that’s a bit random, well yeah it maybe accept this is someone I see and speak to every day and as he has always been nice pleasant guy I though, he deserved something.. And what do you know 6 months later I forget my train fare and he is letting me pay him back later, they do say what goes around comes around but think it’s normally if you do a bad thing, but I guess it works for good things also LOL

Thought I would blog about it as it’s good to know decent people are kicking about, and if you get train, bus or whatever maybe you will take the time to speak to the people you meet every day.

On Saturday I started calling around different Lawn Mower repair places in Glasgow see who could fix my Honda Izy Lawnmower. I call the first one they have 3 week waiting period, calls next one they have 2 weeks waiting period, calls the next one 3 weeks also, thinking this is no good, finally get to the last one and they tell me it’s a 1 week waiting period. I am like ok, how much will it cost to repair, “oh it will be £70 whatever is wrong with it unless we can’t repair it inside the costs or parts and labour up to £70, then we will tell you but that be £20 for checking it”.. ah ok, so flat rate fee regardless if it just needs the oil changed.

So thought feck this, I am going to look up Google with the problems my Lawnmower that costs over £300 could have wrong with it, I find this simple page where guys says.

1. Check you have fuel (check, I bought new fuel and added it)
2. Check your oil level (check, I pulled out the dip stick thing and it was at correct level)
3. Check your spark plug (ah, didn’t even know lawn mowers had them LOL)

So I check where the spark plug is, I looked for manual on where it is and how to remove it, I find a video on Youtube about spark plug removal, turns out I have a spark plug ratchet, I have know idea why I bough one of them. So I remove it and it looks a bit black but to be honest I have no idea what they should look like so I head off to a car parts place and buy a new one, cost me £2.35 I install it and what do you know the lawn mower starts working, I repaired it myself with use of Google, and £2.35 go me LOL … to think I was going to just go to Costco and buy a new one cause I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle, glad I didn’t now and can finally say I am handy around the home/garden

Way hey, opened my mail and found 2 lovely cheques from NS&I Premium Bonds for the May draw, always good to get a tax free prize from the Government, my total win was 1x£50 and 1x£100. I use Premium Bonds as away to keep any money I am due to pay in personal tax each year out the way so I don’t try and spend it, and Premium Bonds are great for this because while you can access your money in about a week or so you have to complete a forum to get at it. Premium Bonds are basically like taking part in National Lottery only the 2 main prizes are limited to 1 million each and win or lose you always get your money back unlike the Lottery, so if you like taking part in the Lottery I would recommend that you seriously look at Premium Bonds, it’s a bit more costly than a lottery ticket to take part but like I say you get the money back, gambling without ant risk, so guess that’s not actually gambling.

If you need to access your health records be they at you GP, a hospital or your dentist. You can apply under the Data Protection Act 1998, as you have a legal right to access your health records.

Now you will probably have a cost to pay, around £10 administration charge is common and if you need a copy of records, notes, results and x-rays then you will probably be charged a photocopying and administration charge however you can only be charged a maximum of £50 in total for this.

You will have to submit your request in writing to the practice / GP surgery and should send the letter recorded delivery keeping a copy for yourself, and you should receive a response in 21 to 40 days, legally they can’t take any longer than 40 day to action your request.

Give your full name, address, date of birth and contact number, and state when you are requesting the records from, this could be all records they hold on you however in some cases this may only go back only 3 or 6 years depending on who it was and what work/advice give was undertaken.

Remember this applies to any health professional, be they GP, dentist, optician or intuitions like a hospital.

The Rangers Riots in Manchester, here is the video’s from CCTV and people’s mobile phones uploaded to Youtube, I am sure more will be uploaded over the coming days but it gives you an idea what happened when the Boys in Blue attacked the Boys in Blue. Never seen anything like it, Rangers “fans” attacking Rangers fans and one Police Officer gets a kick-in as he foolishly stays behind to take the mob on single handed, you can see the CCTV footage you probably seen on TV and then a guy out of his flat filming it from the other side as you clearly see a Rangers fan helping the Officer get out the area dragging him down the street.

Simple fact is Glasgow and Manchester is so close together it made the trip down easy for the Neds and with the big screen failing it gave them all they needed to kick off mini-riots, however some of the footage shows Police Officers randomly giving fans who are standing still doing nothing the odd kick-in, think the Police had their own mini-group of trouble making Neds in their ranks getting paid to dish out some random violence. Wonder how many of the kids in the crowd got injured, it’s a shame as well as it all started off looking like a great day out on the TV.

Will add more video’s if I find any decent quality videos.