blog dot louise bamford dot com

Francis Fiat, my beloved car, was broken into last week (Friday 14th March early morning) outside of Will’s house in Manchester (and this is meant to be the ‘nice’ area). He had his back passenger window smashed:

…and my iPod and Sat Nav were stolen Also, annoyingly I’d accidently left my purse in my car after going to tesco; so that was stolen too! The one frickin night I left it in there, my car gets violated. Even more conveniently I had a huge psychology report in on that Friday , and quite frankly I was in no state to be analysing personality test scores. So I was a bit stuck, I’d rang the police, rang the parents, but couldn’t get hold of my lecturer to delay my deadline. I had no money to even buy some plastic sheeting and tape to cover up my window (because my purse had been stolen) and it was looking as though the rain was coming.

I gave Will a lift to work, then drove around for a little bit aimlessly, crying my eyes out not knowing what to do. So I decided to go back to my halls, rang and cancelled all my bank cards (which I found in my bag later in the day anyway *rolls eyes*), and called my insurance company etc, then found some change from my pot in my room and went to B & Q to get some tape. Luckily, Will managed to get through to the head of psychology and I got an extention with no chance of penalisation. Got my window all covered up, and booked for Autoglass to come and fix my window on the Sunday -which was enough hassle let alone what was to come.

So Sunday came, the guy from Autoglass had to ring me 4 times to work out how to get into my Halls carpark (when I had already explained to the man on the phone to inform the man coming to fix my window how to get in “underneath the building, ramp on the left, press the reception button I’ve informed them that you’re coming and they’ll let you in” it’s not friggin’ rocket science ! ) Finally he managed to get in and he started cracking on. Half an hour later or so, he was finished. He showed me the window working (which was good -apart from the window isn’t Fiat and so doesn’t match), then said, that as he was taking the door panel off there was a small crack at the bottom and the whole panel cracked off. He said, to quote “I’ve glued it back on and it’s barely noticeable” The Jim Royle part of me then took over in my head as I thought to myself “Barely noticeable MY ARSE!” It was done so badly, and even though I am a huuge perfectionist, I reckon even a normal person wouldn’t be happy. I asked him if he could do anything, and he said, “well there was a crack and I couldn’t do anything, you’ll have to get a new one from a scrap yard”. I couldn’t believe it. I paid £70 for that!

As soon as he’d left I got on my phone to the complaints department. They said they would ring me on Monday morning and would order a new door panel from Fiat. So not only did he lie saying it was nothing to do with him, and he couldn’t do anything; he actually went through damages already on the car with me before he started to cover his back and mentioned nothing of a crack on the door panel!

That night, after further inspecting my car to find glue on the material of the panel, and screwdriver marks on the handle, the central locking went dodge! Spazzing out whenever I tried to lock it, it kept unlocking itself! Creeped me and Will out, thought we were going to get locked in my car! Eventually after opening the back passenger door and slamming it shut, the locking went back to normal, luckily!

So, 2pm on Monday and no one had rang me yet, so I rang autoglass, and it took the girl on the phone about 15 minutes JUST to bring up my file on the computer. After all that hassle, I just ended up passing everything to the Blackpool department, because I was coming back to St. Annes for Easter. After conversing with Blackpool just once I was impressed at how competant they were compared to Manchester, and my door panel was arranged to be fitted on the Wednesday no trouble.
Everything was sorted out fine (Kudos to Blackpool Autoglass), and now Francis is perfect again (apart from his scratches on the driver door courtesy of some wanker when I was in Spain and Francis was unattended )

I think I’d rather do annnnything but this psychology report that’s in for tomorrow. I don’t even understand it. It’s GAY.

So here I am bloggethoning

Got another gig to chat about: Streetlight Manifesto! They were supporting Reel Big Fish at Manny Academy 1 on Sunday night. They made me happy. Especially when they played ‘Point, Counterpoint’, although where I was stood I seemed to be the only person who knew the words *go me*. I lost Emma and Natalie when that song came on, and I got in with the ‘pit’ but it wasn’t even a fun skanking pit…it was just loads of sweaty, fat lads, jumping up and down.

Which lead me to decide they should seriously make it compulsory, that when you walk into a gig venue, you are sprayed with deodorant. I mean fair enough, people sweat -I don’t mind that, but it’s when they sweat and they fucking stink! It smelt so much of feet at one point, that I could have thrown up, and because I’m smaller I get all their back fat sweat in my face. I didn’t have this problem at From Autumn To Ashes, the crowd were all girls or prepubescent boys who haven’t mastered the art of grossing anyone out with their BO, within a 5 metre radius.

So sweaty, fat, grossoids aside, I had fun. It was less violent than FATA, I only got hit in the nose, and the back, although my T-shirt got ripped and I bust my lip as a fatty shouldered me in the mouth. Oh and some dick’ed infront of me was wearing high heels and she jumped on my foot, right on my big toe joint, so I punched her in the head. I have a bruuuise there now

Other than that I haven’t actually done much recently. I became a bit of a recluse, staying in bed like all day, and hating everything. Then I got a letter from uni saying I’d missed lectures and I had to contact them. So (eventually) I thought I better do something. Went to talk to old Andy Wiseman (the Combined Honours guy) yesterday, didn’t really sort anything out, in fact he was a bit difficult to talk to, but somehow I feel better about things (??)

Got my car fixed, looks as good as new, only £120 too. But a bird has crapped all over it now, can’t wait to go home and wash it. Which will be this weekend, for me Mam’s 50th Birthday, *yay for a nice meal with the family* and hopefully on Friday I’m going out with my bro and me cousin’s for a wild one in Lytham St.Annes!

Back to Psychology now I guess…

Okay so upon walking home from the corner shop (to get some bacon) this morning, I looked at my bumper (which a woman reversed into a few months ago) and thought ‘I need to get that fixed’…then as I looked along my car, there are a fuck load of scratches, red and blue paint, and dents in my car.

I can’t believe it, it’s on the pavement side as well!! I have no fucking clue who or what caused it, all I know is that I’m so angry and so upset.

It put me off my bacon butties!

Here’s a photo:

UPDATE: After a bit of a brain storm on TSR I’ve come to the conclusion that it was a fucking Stagecoach bus and it must have happened a few days before or something, here is my evidence:

UPDATE TWO: Car has been fixed good job and a bargin price too!

I’m irritated.

My car park space is Number 26.

Thing is there is a guy who parks in space 25, and he keeps parking with this rear end over my space. Which makes it really difficult for me to get in my space. Mr. shitty car space 27 is rarely parked there, but when he is, he parks on the line between mine and his space -which leaves me with even less room. So if they were both parked there, I wouldn’t be able to get into, or out of my space.

What annoys me more is the fact that the guy in space 25, has room in front of him! Whereas I can’t move any further back to maneuver because there is raised decking. AND the guy in space 27 doesn’t even have a space next to him!

Think I’m going to write a note and put it on Mr. 25’s windowscreen. Thing is I don’t know what to put.

I just hate how inconsiderate other drivers can be sometimes!

On the up side -as of December 1st, it is now officially the start of the Christmas count down!! Today my advent calendar chocolate was; what looked like a reindeer? Although it could have been anything. I’m sure the quality used to be a lot better when I was younger -now you just get some illegible chocolate shape. Although, this year my mum got me a ‘Milkybar’ advent calendar and I’m well chuffed as milk chocolate advent calendars don’t taste like normal chocolate but ‘Milkybar’ does. Kudos to mum!

I can’t wait to go home for christmas. With the decorations, and coal fire, and the fudge, and family! It makes me feel all warm thinking about it

It’s Novemeber 5th and I’m sat in, procrastinating…

I have a psychology report in for Wednesday and I’ve written around 167 words of the introduction. Then I have an L & E shit personal development thing in for thursday? and a sociology essay in for Monday. Yay for uni work. Luckily I only need 40% to pass, so…I reckon I only need to work around 40% of the time. Student logic that is

Right so my rant for today’s post, is about the knob head wo-man who fucking reversed into my car! I was sat nicely in a queue of traffic at a red light, on my way to town, and a woman travelling towards me pulled in behind me (on my side) to park in the parking space which was behind me. My god she could not park to save her life, I mean I know I’m not the best person at parking in the world, but at least I can correct myself relatively easily, and at least I know how big my car is!! She however, continued to pull forward and back to get into this space (there was not even a car parked behind her) and I happened to look behind me to see her reversing…reversing…reversing…INTO MY CAR!! I couldn’t fucking believe it, it sounded awful. I sat there. I paniced. I got out then the traffic started moving. So I got back in and pulled up at the side of the road. I got back out and went to check out my car. There didn’t seem to be much damage, just a few light scratches that would come out with some buffing. As I turned around to see if she’d even fucking realised, she had driven off. This fucking WO-MAN fucked me over. By this time I was in disbelief, I was all shakey. Then a couple pulled up, wound the window down, ‘wow someone actually giving a fuck’ I thought to myself. But NOOO “excuse, how do you get to Deansgate?” this fucking dick’ed asked me… People are twats. To make it worse, walking to my car the other day, I noticed my back bumper is lower on the left side now, because she fucking went and broke the rivet that keeps it in place. Dick’ed.

On a happier note, it’s Will’s 21st birthday party this Saturday. I’ve bought a very pretty dress, and some very pretty shoes especially for it. The Monday after, Will starts his new job and on Wednesday it’s his birthday -although not forgetting Ross’ on Tuesday

Meh that’s all I can be bothered blogging at the minute. No doubt next week I’ll have lots of photos, and news. Especially as I’ve got a few fun packed weekends coming up, inc. Will’s party, Bill Bailey, my cousin’s 18th, my grandma’s 80th, and the medical ball! All that takes me into December -and then it’s nearly Christmas!! My how time flies…

That’s right, I’ve done my ABC’s, and I literally got my ABC’s. My results as of Thursday 17th August stand as follows:

Psychology: A

Sociology: B

(AS) Computing : C

(AS) Art: C

Which brought me to over 350 ucas points, whooping the ass of the 280 I needed to get into Manchester Metropolitan University to study Psychology combined with Sociology.

My uni accommodation is still in the process of being sorted (three months on from when I sent my application in), because MMU seem to have the least organised processing system of any other university (forum after forum is filled with MMU students panicing, because they still havn’t heard whether they have a place to live, 3 weeks before the start of term). I’ve been confirmed with a place in Wilmslow Park Accommodation, just off Oxford Road, on Hathersage Road.

To give you a better picture of where it is, for those of you who have heard of ‘Curry Mile’, (which I recently measured to be only 0.6 miles -psh!) Wilmslow Park is on the first right after the ‘Mile’ when you’re heading into the city centre. Unfortunately, I don’t like curry, but from the outside, Wilmslow Park looks promising, and there’s a Subway, Macdonalds and a cool restaurant that sells curly fries and has dirty desserts probably no less than a minutes walk away.

Good food places aside, I’m not looking forward to viewing my room, I’ve secured ensuite facilities but it’s hardly 5 star, luckily I’ve got a bit of a cleaning problem so my bathroom will be *spotless* within an hours cleaning to avoid my mental panic attacks (where I scream inside a little -lol) caused by the thoughts of the ex resident having lived there. (The worst is hotel baths -I have a fear of baths having been used and being unclean *cringe*!!) The mattress will also have about 3 protectors on before my sheets go on. I reckon I’ll make it into my own lil den soon enough though, with my posters/flags/art/electic drum kit and what not.

On a coooool note, I’ve been collecting the coca cola glasses from Macdonalds, I’ve got 4 so far; grey, blue, purple, and green.

On an even coooooler note, my dad treated me to a sat nav for doing well in my exams. It’s a GARMIN N√ºvi 310, and it’s pretty nifty.

Oh. I nearly forgot (how could I forget my tyre?!). On Tuesday morning, driving the usual Manchester to Preston to home journey, all was well, I dropped Will off in Preston, but as I set off down the A6 I managed to get a puncture in my back right tyre, from a bloody nail. I hadn’t realised intially, but when I did, I began to panic, I had no credit and low battery on my phone, and Preston driving folk aren’t the nicest so I thought I was going to have to tackle changing my tyre on my own. Luckily, Will (who’s Senior Technical Consultant for a clamping company) had noticed my flat as I drove away, so he rang me, and he said he would send a clamper to help me. I found that changing tyres is really easy, you just stand there and watch a man do it lol. I’m so not a feminist.

I thought it was quite novel to see a clamper being productive toward the mobility of a vehicle and there was a few looks from drivers by, one commented on how the spare tyre didn’t look much like a clamp. But I personally thought it was one of those jokes, where everyone was already thinking it, but then someone just had to go and say it.

After, the drive of shame home, down the M55, (my spare permitting me to drive at most 50 mph ) I went to the garage to try get my flat repaired (which would have been a tenner!), only to get the bad news that it was a rim puncture and I’d need a new tyre. I chose the ‘Michelin Kleber’ (a tyre designed for high mileage -seeing as I drive around 120 miles a day!) over the standard shit one, 10 of your english pounds more for the Michelin tyre, priced at 56 pound 12 pence, but I got an extra 15000 miles performance -can’t go wrong with quality.

My next recent dilema, which is the current dilema, is the Mac/PC conflict. Throughout my life I have been a PC user, but after Will’s recent purchase of a MacBook I’ve been thrown into a new world. At the moment, I’m browsing for a Laptop for university, and I think I may have been alured by the Apple Store, with all it’s shiny whiteness and student discount. Macbooks are so sexy, and with the ability to boot Windows anyway why would I want a generic windows laptop that can’t run OS X, that I couldn’t iChat on, and has shit battery life? Psh, let me know if you find a reason why I can’t have my cake and eat it. Now it seems like I’ve made my decision on a Mac, there’s still the choice of which MacBook, Michael Jackson seemed to think ‘it don’t matter if you’re black or white’, but when it comes to MacBooks there’s a big difference. Seems like a trip to the Apple Store is in order.

Bye for now

I think I can squeeze a post in, to inform you that I am now employed, before I go to work. So here goes…

I am now employed!

…Finally. Although it’s not exactly a challenging occupation. I’m working at ‘The Sheep Shop’, for my mum. Yesterday was my first ‘proper’ day; I worked a whole 7 hours! On a lovely rate of ¬£5.50 an hour. So far my duties have included, selling a metre of ribbon to an OAP (our target market), and painting a third of an office with ‘crown period ‘petticoat’ matt emulsion. Which I didn’t expect to but managed to get all over my clothes, shoes, arms, legs, face and hair. I loved it!

However, before the painting, when I was a little less of a mess, I offered to go and collect my mum’s Ralph Lauren reading glasses from the opticians in the Square for her. I got there and walked through the door. I saw about 3 staff there and two customers, and it was pretty obvious that they all saw me, because they all proceeded to stare right at me until I got to the counter. Where the lady serving took what I believed was an unpleasant manner with me, interrupting me when I spoke and speaking to me in a very blunt tone. I wasn’t too happy. Walking back to ‘The Sheep Shop’, I became angry. That they had been so judgemental. I may have been wearing cut off combat pants, black scruffy trainers, and a baggy, black, Iron Maiden t-shirt with various beasts of the number 666 (or more fitting, the number 616 -as Qi informed me), as I walked into their blinding white, minimalist, empty store, but I’m almost certain that if I had walked in wearing the ‘norm’ of clothes, no one would have batted an eyelid. I am angered.

On a better note, I have learnt to knit. But I’m not exactly a pro yet. My forte at the moment is scarves. You now know what to expect for Christmas.

I’m now late for work, so, best scoot.

Edit: To top it off the glasses I went to collect for my mum, after being repaired, were not even to an acceptable standard, and so need to be taken back! Oh, pictures from my sixth form prom (29/6/07) can be found here.

Upon driving home a few minutes ago back from Will’s flat, I noticed a sticker on the back of a car of a disabled driver. The fact they were disabled hasn’t got much to do with the story, but I felt it needed to be pointed out. Back to the sticker, it was a little on the small side, so you could say that I actually edged forwards a touch to gather a better view of the sticker. Only to find it read:

keep your distance!

What the fuck use is that?

…

After recently coming across Parrs Wood High School’s website, and being somewhat impressed, I decided to check up on good ol’ Lytham High’s website, only to realise just how shit it actually is.

For example, take a look at this link: Lytham’s About Us Page If that’s what the school has to say about its self I think it’s pretty appalling. Have you seen the alignment ‘justify’ within those awfully shaped and coloured columns, and that thick, black, bold text? Whoever designed this should be shot. Have you ever seen such an eyesore, and one that so represents a school?!

Looking at the home page I can see that this designer didn’t just stop at ugly text, have you seen the table alignment?

I thought I had seen enough until I spotted dining room facilities referred to as ‘dining room facs’, does this school even know anything about education? Should slang really be encouraged?

The photographs of the dining room facilities shown, give a very inacurate portrayal of the actual dining room facilities, which are more often than not closed (recently caused by a burst sewage pipe in the kitchen!), thus creating a very crowded, stuffy area to eat. This area in these circumstances I am sure would not meet fire safety regulation standards, especially when all but two doors to enter the dining area are locked.
The mezzanine area, pictured with sixth formers, is very outdated seeing as it has been permanently closed for months now, because of so called ‘litter problems’, -I’m sure it’s nothing to do with the fact the school cannot afford staff to run the cafeteria upstairs. So why is it that Lytham High thought it was an absolute must to build such an over the top ‘modern’ dining facility (seen here), when they hadn’t even thought of the slight chance that staff would want paying to work. It seemed that the school began running out of money when it came to furnishing the mezzanine, consequently, chairs did not fit under the tables, like they are supposed to.
To comment on the staff some more, they are never as happy as seen on this photo here, and they regularly insist that I cannot just buy 2 pieces of garlic bread for my lunch, instead, I have to buy a meal in order to buy my garlic bread. Tell me please when the fuck did Jamie Oliver ever say that 18 year olds cannot buy garlic bread on it’s own, but instead have to spend more money and subsequently eat more calories to get it! How is that healthy eating?!

And if that’s not enough the website doesn’t meet w3c accessibility standards level 1! By not providing a minimum of level 1 accessibility a website is illegal as it is discriminate against those with disabilities, violating the Disability Discrimination Act.

Hmm..I feel better after that.

Recently two news stories have come to my attention:

1. “Superskinny me -the race to double zero”

let’s show how to become bulimic on TV?
why not give self conscious, media influenced teenagers weight loss education?
Has nobody heard of psychology’s behavioural approach??

dick’eds.

&

2. “Pregnant teens take up smoking to avoid pain of childbirth”

if they’re stupid enough to get pregnant, then they’re slack enough to have it.