Who calls me? Spam numbers

  

Beautiful Ballachulish

The village of Ballachulish in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, is centred on former slate quarries. 

It’s a beautiful part of the world. Apparently. I’ve never been. But Today I got called at 10:10 am by this number: 01855 605 303

This is evidently a spam number. I know nobody in Ballachulish. I don’t tend to give out my mobile number when I fill in forms, etc. If I do, I always tweak one of the numbers so it’s not accurate.

Yesterday, I got called at 11:43am by 01943 593491. This is from a place called Guisely, based in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated south of Otley and Menston, it is a suburb of north west Leeds.

Also, a very beautiful little town. From the pictures I’ve seen, it has quaint limestone walls and small grey-stone buildings.

But once again I know nobody who lives there. And nobody who would want to call me in the morning. The mystery deepens.

On Tuesday, I was phoned by 01792 828958. This is a proper firm called Opinion Research Services. At least, it has a web presence. Now, nobody can be 100% sure that any firm with a web presence is actually genuine but it looks genuine. It has even put a helpful notice on its website:

“Our telephone interviewing centre based in Swansea makes calls from 01792 828958, 01792 674980 or 01792 348614. We understand that many people are reluctant to answer calls from numbers that they don't recognise, so we have prepared this FAQ page for people who receive a call from us and then search for 01792 828958, 01792 674980 or 01792 348614. It explains who we are, why we are calling and will hopefully answer any other questions you may have.”

Well, not really. I want to know how it knows who I am and how it has my personal mobile number. Anyway. Of course I ignored it.

Monday was also fun. At 11:57 I was called from Bridgend on 01656 360199. Again although I know a few people there, nobody would call me. You see the pattern here? Random numbers from across the UK, all calling at roughly the same time. I actually answered this one as “Newsdesk”. When they realised they’d called the national newsdesk of a major newspaper, they quickly apologised, said they’d remove me from their database, and hung up.

I bet they didn’t. I bet they passed me to Guisely and Ballachulish.

I had quite a few unwanted calls on Monday. Spammers 0843 724 0610 called me – I get this one quite regularly. In fact, it has its own entry in my phone book as “Spam”.

That evening, Opinion Research Services called me again.

I got spammed by Spam on Sunday, by ORS again on Sunday, by Morons last week – Morons being 0117 301 7723. They also have a special entry in my phone book.

ORS called me twice more last Friday, last Thursday, and last Wednesday.

I got a fun call from 0800 056 2422 on the 19th, ORS on the 19th, again in the morning from 0800 056 2422. ORS is starting to be a PITA (pain in the xxxx)

On 18th I got called by 01530 382 170. This is from the place called Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Coalville. This is accordingly a very nice place to visit in Leicestershire. It boasts several centuries’ worth of historical activity, Norman Castles and quiet English Pubs.

Overall, the past couple of weeks I’ve been blessed by such a national variety of spammers trying to do whatever – sell me PPI or talk to me about my accident claim. In fact, it’s risen so much over the past couple of weeks that I have to suspect either that my details have been passed on by one of my providers – I recently signed up with Amex – or someone has a grudge against me (perfectly reasonable) and has put my number on every single spammer’s website to punish me.

I can only assume I am being punished. And I probably deserve it. But just in case you get met with one of these numbers, I am informing you now to be aware. The scammers are everywhere, even in the middle of absolutely frigging nowhere. 

Moron in the sky with custard

custard

While eating delectable chocolate and amaretto cake the other evening at a family friend's house, enjoying some fine sweet Australian white and gazing at the glorious spring sunset over the Nova Scotian countryside, I happened to be recounting a tale of travelling woe.

For the Mermaid of Moorgate does not always swim everywhere; no, indeed, she often takes the flying machine and hence increases her likelihood of heart attacks by still flying with British Airways. Death by Stress. What Mermaid hates is people who arrive late for things. She used to go out with someone who was always late, leaving at the last minute, unable to get ready on time. Lovely chap, but infuriating to go anywhere with as, with three minutes to go before the train/coach would leave, we'd still be on the underground because boyo wasn't ready.

Well one time, Mermaid and aforementioned boyo were due to fly out (with British Airwazzocks) to a European destination. The plane left at 2:30 from Heathrow. We needed to be checked in by 1:45. It takes 1 hour and 40 minutes from boyo's house to the airport. Mermaid was all packed and ready to leave by 12. Boyo enticed her round to his with the kind proffer of breakfast. I arrived. Breakfast was not cooked. Boyo asked Merms if she would kindly cook it. I started to do so, under the misapprehension we would have time to eat it. It was on the plates. Boyo was eating, but there was not sign of activity. Merms got suspicious.

At 12:30 she peeked into Boyo's room. He had only just decided which suitcase he was going to take. He had not packed. Had only just started to get his clothes ready. And there he was, trying to decide whether to put brown sauce or ketchup on his second piece of bacon.

It was the last straw. Each time we'd almost been late for a plane and he'd promised to sort it out. No more broken promises

"WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW" I thundered.

"I'm eating"

"NOW".

"We have to leave NOW!"

I've never seen anyone with apoplexy. I think I approached an apoplectic state however. I think my tail even turned black.

Boyo, boiled egg in one hand, pair of socks in the other, proceeded to pack his case with a dervishly frenzied manner. I think he was sulking.

He ran into the kitchen, put lots of food into a plastic bag.. sorry, he did not RUN, that would convey the impression that he was now starting to hurry up. The more I hurried, the slower he got. It was now almost 1. We managed to get the tube and change for the Piccadilly line to Heathrow.

Now you must remember that this is in the days just after the bombings at airports. We were allowed just to take our credit card, money and passports on board. Nothing should be taken on. Airports were in a whirlwind of confusion - lines everywhere, baggage missing for months, planes delayed - chaos.

It was into this chaos that we descended at nearly 2 pm. Although it was past original check-in time, the flight had been delayed by 20 minutes. We had EIGHT minutes to CHECK IN, PASS SECURITY AND BOARD OUR PLANE.

Merms kicked into action. I found a worker who put us through immediately at the front of the queue. "Good luck" he called, as he told us to cut through the first class/executive flight security point.

The security guard at the railings told us to go to the back of the queue. Again, Merms took to work and flirted with him outrageously and explained the situation. Immediately he unhooked the rope and let us through the fast track. Or would have done.

"Excuse me sir" I heard him say.

I turned.

There was boyo, with a big plastic Tesco's bag of cold breakfast.

Boyo was drinking Custard.

DRINKING custard.

"You can't take that in there" he said to Boyo.

"But it's food. I'll finish it before we get to security."

"I can't allow you to... what are you drinking? Custard?" The security guard looked like he'd been hit in the face with a kipper.

"I like custard. It's a waste to throw it away."

"Boyo" I said, "There are bomb scares everywhere. There are massive signs up saying not to take any liquids or bags onto the plane. you can't get through security with that food, you have to throw it away!"

"But it's only custard" Boyo said, continuing to drink from the container as if it was the last food he would ever eat in his life.

"Is he with you?" the security guard said. I almost died of mortification. "Is he your boyfriend? And he's drinking CUSTARD?" He called his security guard friend over.

"This kid is drinking custard from a carton. Look."

"THROW IT AWAY NOW!"

"I've almost finished it" he pleaded, glugging away at the cardboard opening. I pulled it from him, threw it into the bag and tossed all the food into the nearest bin.

"We have three minutes to get our plane and you're worried about bloody custard!!!!!!!!!" I was so angry.

The security guard patted me on the shoulder. "Good luck" he said. By now there were three guards, all pointing and laughing. People in the queue behind were taking photos.

By some fluke, we made it to the plane with literally seconds to spare. everyone else was boarded and sitting down, glaring at us. I hardly dared to look up.

As we put on our seatbelts, Moron turned to me and said: "See, I told you we'd make it."

I wished he'd choked on his custard. I mean, really, which moron eats custard in public anyway?

Moron

Nehemiah - funniest book in the Bible?

Mawkish Victorian Image of Nehemiah

Looking at the thread of comments in the last post reminded me of my favourite and potentially the most lary character in the Old Testament (or, for my Jewish friends, the Testament!). In the eponymously-named book of History that is Nehemiah, the protagonist, a high-ranking Jewish servant/exile in the house of the Babylonian King Darius, pleads for the return of Israel to Jerusalem, to rebuild the House of the Lord, the walls and palace gates of Jerusalem which had been demolished 70 or 80 years previously.

He returns and, together with the scribe Ezra, they rebuild the walls and the spiritual lives of the people. He's a great character - at one stage, the people of Israel are under physical attack from the nearby tribes - and so they work to rebuild the walls, men and women, with one hand they are building and in the other they are ready with their weapons. While the men load the stones into place, the older men and women stand behind with spears and lanterns so they are ready for any attacks.

But Nehemiah is so funny! I always laugh out loud in church whenever they read the following chapters:

Chapter 6 vs 8: he tells a bunch of big-wigs: "You are just making it up out of your head."

But the best bit is in Chapter 7, where he catches a lot of the Jewish elders going round nicking wives from the unbelieving tribes and doing naughty things they shouldn't be doing with various ladies of questionable reputation:

"(CH 14 v 7): I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair."

ha ha ha ha! Chortle! Every time I see this in my head I think of TEACH from the Beano, jumping up and down and pinging chalk onto a kid's nose, while snorting in rage and yelling: "Nincompoop! Imbecile! Moron!".

And when I see this in my head and they're reading this passage out in Church, I always laugh out loud. If more ministers of the cloth so rebuked their recalcitrant congregation, the world would perhaps be a much better place. I'd love to see The Archbishop of Canterbury labouring about some minor clergy's head with an advent candle for some misdemeanour. It would amuse me greatly to witness a pastor slam-dunking someone's cranium into the collection plate for smoking on the church step.

After all, if the Muslims can wreak religious punishments, surely Christians could do it better, with more panache and possibly with a wry sense of irony.

Ah! Nehemiah! You have much to teach us today. Just leave my highlights alone.