Ben Nuttall

Blog: A Day In The Life

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Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Have You Got Any ID?

I lost my bus pass last week, but fortunately it was handed in to the Stagecoach office so I was able to go and collect it (I must have dropped it while on the bus and it must have got handed in to the driver). I started getting ready to leave the house earlier this afternoon to go to the office to pick it up, when I thought "I wonder if they'll ask me to provide ID to collect it" and amused myself at the thought of being asked for identification to collect my own ID card (the plastic wallet contains a bus pass and a student ID card, both of which must be shown to the driver). I thought they might do, but didn't bother taking any because I thought it would be funny if the situation I had imagined presented itself when I got there.

So I set off and caught the bus (I had to pay, of course) to the bus garage. When I got up to the office, this is how the conversation went:

Me: Hi, I've come to collect my bus pass which has been handed in here.
Receptionist: Ok, do you have any identification?
Me: That's what I've come to collect.
Receptionist: Oh ... well, do you have any other?
Me: I don't think so; that is my identification. (I then looked through my wallet but I had nothing with a photograph)
Reception: Don't you have a driver's license?
Me: No, I don't drive. I get the bus.
Receptionist: Oh...
Me: That is my identification I've come to collect. It has my photo and name on it. You can see it's me.
Receptionist: Erm...
Me: I can show you the email I was sent telling me to come here to collect it, if that helps...
Receptionist: Erm...
Me: The ID card with my bus pass has my name and photo - you can see it's me.
Receptionist: Erm ... can you write down your name?
Me: Yes...
Receptionist: Ok, let me go and ask someone...
(10 minutes later...)
Receptionist: Here it is.
Me: Thank you.

I love it when stuff like this happens, it's so amusing. I love getting in to battles of initiative! Trying desperately to explain how I'm right and there's no way anything could go wrong if they did what I asked. It's the same with getting ID'd for alcohol or using a student card for discount travel fairs.

I had an instance a few years ago while in my first year at sixth form, with a bus driver who wouldn't let me use a student discount weekly travel pass I'd purchased earlier in the week, because he claimed the student ID card I presented wasn't the right sort of student ID card. Basically, he was saying it was supposed to be an NUS student card, but mine was a Connexions student card. I explained that I'd been using the Connexions card for months and it had always been accepted, and that I had already paid for the weekly pass, so it was unfair for him to refuse me if the company had already taken my money. He kept repeating himself that it had to be an NUS card, and I kept coming up with another reason why it made no difference. I said "I am a student. This student ID card proves it. I'm on my way to school now. The student weekly pass is available to students, I've shown you proof that I'm a student, so what's the problem?" and he wouldn't back down. We debated for another ten minutes (seriously) and he even phoned a colleague to check, he still wouldn't back down. I came out with more reasons why he should let me on, and repeated the more important ones I'd already outlined, until he finally said I could get on. He battled for fifteen minutes and just let me on anyway. The whole thing was pointless. I went to see the manager of the bus garage that evening, who told me that the small print said that it had to be an NUS card (although he gave me no reason why other proof of student status was insufficient), to which I said was fair enough, but that it wasn't fair of them to take my money on Monday and refuse me the next day. I ended up having to get an NUS card just in case I got someone like that driver. No-one would ever check but occasionally I'd get one like him (literally about 1 in 50 would check) and whenever I did get him he'd recognise me and, with a smug look, would always say "Can I see your genuine NUS card" and I'd show it to him, to his disappointment. The bastard.

The NUS card is valid only for 1 year, so in the first week of my second year I had to order a new one. The old one was due to expire at the end of the first week, so I had used it to get to school the first day back. We were given the forms to send off for new ones on the first day back; I filled mine out and sent it off straight away, expecting it to take a few days (as it said it would), but it hadn't arrived by the Friday, the day after my old card expired. I got to school fine that day, and went training after school and ended up going for the bus later on in the evening, around 8:00. I thought to myself how it would be typical that this one time I don't have a valid NUS card I would get the driver I had had problems with in my first year - of course, that's who I got. Brilliant. He's the only driver in the company who would thoroughly check the card, looking for any imperfection invalidating it. I flashed it and, of course, he asked to take a closer look. After 30 seconds of examination his heart leapt as he saw it. He must have taken a few seconds to confirm to himself that what he saw was true - it was genuinely invalid. "This card's expired", he said. Fuck. I began to explain that it was valid when I purchased the weekly pass, and that I had already sent off for a new card which should have arrived by then, that I had phoned them up to ask why it hadn't arrived yet and they apologised for the delay, but he was having none of it. I exhausted my arguments and he wasn't backing down. It was game over. I got off and saw that the next bus wasn't for another 40 minutes or so. Of course, the next bus driver didn't check and I got home fine on the next bus.

It's a similar situation when buying alcohol. As I told the receptionist, I don't have a driver's license (not even provisional - I've had the form for over 4 years now but never got round to filling it in) so if I need to show ID anywhere, I have to take my passport, which I only take with me if I know I'm going to need it. When I moved in to the house I live in now, I went to Sainsbury's to buy a few things for the house. Amongst the items in my trolley were a toilet brush, a bread knife, washing up liquid, a washing up bowl, oven gloves, a toilet duck and things like that. There was no alcohol or anything like that in my trolley, so you can imagine my surprise when I was asked for ID. "What for?", I asked the checkout lady. "The knife", she replied. I thought to myself "What knife? ... Oh, the bread knife.", so I said "Well, how old do I need to be to buy a bread knife?" and she said she had to ask anyone who looked under 25, and I had to prove I was over 18. I showed her my student card (that's all the ID I keep in my wallet), but although it has a photograph, it doesn't show my date of birth (why the university produces ID cards with no date of birth is beyond me), so she said it had to be a passport or driver's license. I told her I had neither. Eventually she let me off because she thought I looked old enough, but it made me think - why doesn't initiative come in to it? What the hell sort of under 18 buys a toilet duck!? And well, why is that the rule? Is it to stop young people purchasing items they could use as weapons? If I was a 17 year old trying to buy a knife to kill my friends with, would I really buy a Sainsbury's Basics bread knife!? Come on!

Labels: Miscellaneous

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 18:13

Monday, 21 December 2009

Rage Against The X-Factor

The X-Factor winner has won the Christmas Number One every year since 2005, and it would have been the same this year if it hadn't been for one man. A guy called Jon Morter decided he was sick of seeing people being spoon-fed what music they should like by Simon Cowell so he set up a Facebook group and Twitter profile to get people to buy Rage Against The Machine's 1992 single Killing In The Name in the hope that it would beat Joe McElderry's The Climb. This caught on through early- and mid- December and so many people joined the Facebook group that it was talked about on the radio and on television.


I joined the group and when it came to the time to buy it, I did! I've never paid for a download before but this seemed a good enough cause to do so. I really wanted it to win because it represented everything I hated about the X-Factor culture. Last week Sting called the X-Factor a televised karaoke contest and said "I am sorry but none of those kids are going to go anywhere, and I say that sadly" which is completely true.

And last night the charts were announced - RATM won, with Joe in second place. Fantastic. The RATM single was only available as a download, and not as a CD in shops, and it's the first time a download-only song has made it to number one.

This truly represents the majority of the people in the UK - most people don't like the X-Factor but there's never any one song in particular that they like which could overtake chart music. This couldn't have happened without an effort to push something over the top. That kind of makes the whole idea of having music charts pointless, because despite the fact that it shows that more people buy one song more than any other song, it doesn't show that most people don't buy that one song.

I personally despise chart music. The majority of the music in my collection is either from decades ago like The Beatles, Chuck Berry and Frank Sinatra, Run DMC, NWA and Michael Jackson or is more recent but from the sort of genres that don't get a lot of attention in popular culture, like MC Lars, Yellowcard, Less Than Jake. The only recent music I like that happens to be popular (such as Bowling For Soup, Blink 182 and Taylor Swift) is music from generally unpopular genres that have made a breakthrough. There are very few songs in the current charts at any time that I will genuinely like.

Some people disagreed with the idea for two reasons: both singles were on Sony Records so all the money was going to them anyway; and buying one particular record because we were being told to was the opposite of the message it was trying to convey. But I think sometimes you have to do something like that to prove a point. As for Sony making more money, that's not what it's about (and that's just pure coincidence that they share a label) - because it's about demonstrating the strong feeling against the manufactured so-called 'stars' setting the trends, as puppeteered by Simon Cowell.

Anyway, I think it's great that the people managed to voice their opinion by sticking two fingers up at Simon Cowell and the X-Factor. RATM had promised a free gig in the UK if they won, and they intend to honour this. Also, the group affiliated itself with a homeless charity Shelter, and have raised over £80,000 for them to far, which is fantastic!


Read more on BBC News.

I must add, this blog post means that I have posted in each month in 2009, which is the first time I have never skipped a month in a whole year. I'm sure I'll be able to keep this up in 2010.

Labels: Miscellaneous

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 17:11

Monday, 16 November 2009

Can I Buy You Some Lunch?

This is the story of me buying lunch for a homeless guy. Before I start, I would like to point out that I'm not writing this to make myself look good, demand praise or anything selfish. I merely wanted to share the amusement I found in what happened.

Labels: Miscellaneous

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 12:44

Tuesday, 8 September 2009

We Love The NHS

As you probably know, there's a lot of discussion about the UK's state health service - particularly with regards to the future of America's health service. It's been a recent Trending Topic on Twitter (#welovethenhs). Anyway, this prompted me to think about what I think should be freely available to anyone, regardless of how wealthy they are. Here's what I think:

• Health Care
• Education
• Housing
• Access to a Library (and hence, the Internet)
• Healthy Food
• Advice (Citizen's Advice Bureau)
• Exercise (not a gym membership - just the ability to exercise in the outdoor environment - like the Chinese exercise parks)
• Public Transport (making all of the above less restricted)

But how far do we take each of these? If health care is freely available, does that include dental treatment? What about people who get themselves into health trouble by living unheathily (bad diet, drink, drugs, smoking, lack of exercise)? Does this stretch to physiotherapy? Abortions? Mole/wart removal? Should free education be capped at age 16? 18? 21? Not at all? I'm annoyed at how expensive it is to eat healthily and think the government should enforce rules on supermarkets to reduce the price of fruit, vegetables and organic foods.

There are some other things I think should be freely available to anyone, regardless of wealth, that are more extreme examples (in a perfect world), such as:

• Public Transport (all over the UK)
• A home telephone line (and calls to anywhere)
• A home internet connection
• Sufficient heating at home

I think that if someone wants to go to London (to see family/friends or just to see London), they should be able to go and not restricted by money. If someone needs to go somewhere locally or further afield, they should just be able to go. If this was the case, so many more opportunities would be available to people. I think that if someone wants or needs to call someone, they should be able to do so, regardless of distance, without having to worry about how much it will cost. Some people have relatives abroad, it's not their fault - but why should they have to pay more to speak to them? If someone goes on holiday, why should they be worried about how much it will cost to call home? Fortunately for me, Vodafone had a fantastic summer roaming promotion throughout June, July and August, which meant I could call & text anyone back at home as normal (it took it out of my minutes as if I was at home) - this was great - and there's no reason they shouldn't have it going all year round. Maybe in the next couple of years it will start becoming more standard that that is the case. Another thing is heating - why should someone have to worry about their heating bill and have to live in a freezing cold house? I know the government have a Winter heating allowance for pensioners which is great, but it shouldn't be limited to the elderly.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any incentive for anyone to work - because if everyone has all these things anyway they might not feel the need to go out and earn a living, but there are plenty of things which would still be a luxury. If someone is unemployed, they have no income and more pressure is placed upon them - if they can't afford to pay their telephone line rental this will hinder their chances of getting employed (as they won't be able to ring anyone or have them ring them), and why should their state of health be affected by unemployment? It just pushes them further away from the ones living in luxury. I think as long as a person lives within the law and works to earn a living (or makes the effort to find work), there are certain things they should be entitled to.
I feel the opposite about convicted criminals - they should not have any luxuries like Sky TV but their health should not be affected. They should have the ability to eat healthily and exercise but not live in comfort and luxury - why should a convicted criminal be better off than a hard working man on minimum wage?

Labels: Miscellaneous

Posted by Ben Nuttall at 13:04

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