Just before 3pm this afternoon, the company I am really starting to loathe called me at home…

…again!

Regular readers are going to be familiar with the name, but for my newbies, it’s TNS, a UK research company. It has just pissed me off for the umpteenth time and my virtual soapbox is back out for me to stand on.

This is the third post I have felt obliged to write in four months to address annoying corporate behaviour (links to previous posts below). Though I am not a preacher, I will carry on lambasting this damn company, with an almost religious zeal, until it can get its act together.

Today it was Tia Goldsmith’s turn to be on the end of my frank and short tempered response to being dialled. She was calling on behalf of Sport England.

It turns out that TNS cannot get its technology sorted out to exclude my number from its telephony lists. The automated dialler put Tia through to my number without her intervention and only once I started with my “Are you kidding me” dialogue, was she able to see any notes associated with my number (including the don’t call it instruction).

In the course of earning a living, I work with telemarketing agencies whose switchboards won’t allow call handlers to dial telephone numbers registered on the TPS or CTPS schemes (the switchboard block can be overridden, but that usually needs an approval from someone of a higher rank than the caller).

You would have thought that TNS would have similar exclusion functionality to operate around “opt outs” but apparently not.

In the world of marketing there are expressions for some dubious practices where companies use market research as a front for selling, marketing, fundraising or even political persuading (sugging, mugging, frugging, pugging); I am about to suggest a new category – Tugging. Taunting Under the Guise of market research.

The bastards are certainly taunting me!

Of course TUGging might also suggest something else altogether less tasteful. But then again TNS’s opt-out process is a load of wank and the callers, (inadvertently to be fair) a bunch of prefixed “ers”.

Until next time…

01/07/2016 http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/tns-telephone-nuisance-service
18/05/2016 http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/tns-stop-bloody-calling

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A few weeks ago I first spotted Sally. Like the first glance across a crowded bar, she caught my eye and began playing on my mind. Each time I have seen her since, I have looked for a bit longer and last week I even stopped to introduce myself.

There is some potential for a love affair, I am certain of it. I have even made enquiries of her family.

All dressed in beige, looking a little tired, lonely and rather forlorn, she wouldn’t be everyone’s idea of a love interest. But I can see through her dulled makeup and frayed clothing to her potential and I want to get to know her better.

Sally, for she has to have a name, (and to address any nervousness at this point) is not a female to compete with Mrs B. but instead is a mid-seventies Saab 99. 

Sally the seventies Saab
I have never owned, nor wanted a Saab for that matter, but this little car has fired up my imagination and I have thought about her regularly.

And regular readers will be familiar with my “thing” about old cars, there are plenty of them featured all over this site. But none of them are actually mine. 

My last classic was a 1973 Vauxhall Firenza, but moving to Daventry, marriage and children put an end to my indulgence, disposable income, free time, youth, good looks etc. (Blimey that feels depressing, so I’ll stop). In the five years, well damn nearly anyway, since this site became operational, the old-car pleasure has all been vicarious.

But imagination (mentioned a few lines ago) is a wonderful thing. I am already envisaging a new area on my website dedicated to storytelling about Sally and our adventures together - trips/challenges/motoring events/maintenance/loads of photos etc. There could even be a book in it. 

I think she’d look great on my site, she’d fit in just fine and be very relevant from a vintage theme perspective. Do you agree?

But like all dreams of romance, reality is inevitably less perfect. 

Sally is a resident of my local Intapart scrapyard and because of that I had naively hoped to acquire her for little outlay i.e. the scrap value or thereabouts (though, less naively, I know full well that old cars become endless money pits - initial outlay is only the start). 

Having contacted her guardians Luke and Edward, it turns out that she is still a bit of a goer and priced accordingly. That’s good (less work required than expected) and bad news.

Bad because I can’t fund what amounts to an impulse buy at the price point offered. And even if I could, Mrs Baldwin would shoot me if I did - which would end all the adventures I am imagining as effectively as not buying her.

The timing of such an acquisition is not ideal either if I am honest with myself. But either you buy something when you see it or you lose the chance to buy it at all.

So what to do? 

Walk away obviously!

​And watch her sell on ebay!

But…

Maybe there’s a way, a deal to be done that doesn’t just rely on cash. Maybe the next thing I should write is a business case or a marketing proposal for delivering greater value than the sale price. I am used to negotiating with suppliers and skilled in the ways of relationship management; promotion is genetically coded - marketing is what I do for Saab’s sake. 

Or I could just buy a motorbike.

Or be sensible and stick to blogging rather than dreaming.

The dreaming was fun though, but just the one blog post rather than a series.  

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On Sunday 31st July I went to a great gig in Milton Keynes.

And I thought I’d tell you all about it. If nothing else, another gig write-up will counter-balance the profusion of motoring related posts that my regulars have been subjected to in recent weeks.

But…

…now that motoring has come up, I can’t help but digress a little – in this instance, I’ll not start as I meant to.

“Go On Hamilton!”

I am loving Lewis’ comeback. It’s been joyous watching him reeling in and then overtaking Rosberg in the 2016 Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship. Long may he reign supreme!

I digress I know, but the comments above are relevant for a few reasons, the first of which is that Hamilton’s victory in Hockenheim occurred on the 31st too.

It had been a good day even before the gig!

And that brings me back on track. My buddy Hughesy accompanied me to the gig at the Craufurd Arms in Wolverton; on the bill were “Desert Storm” (a band regular readers will be familiar with – for previous reviews, see links below – why not read those too and that will save some repetition in this post) and the headline act “Honky”. 

Desert Storm
Desert Storm (DS) took to the stage at 8:15pm – this time around, all five members of the band were present. After an introduction, during which the guys mentioned their increasing familiarity with the venue (I may have been to all the band’s gigs at the Craufurd Arms), they proceeded to rock through this nine song set.

1. Outlander
2. Astral Planes
3. Signals From Beyond
4. Drifter
5. Brawl
6. Too Far Gone
7. Queen Reefer
8. Convulsion
9. Enslaved in the Icy Tundra

Desert Storm’s sound is complex and moves between bluesy inspired material and chugging, stoner metal.  The songs are often multi-movement pieces with changes of tempo and style during them. The variety makes the music interesting and good to listen to. And as musicians, the fellas are accomplished and the band is tight.

There were a few tunes that I was unfamiliar with (4, 5 & 8) so hopefully it won’t be long before I/you/we have another album release to enjoy.

When the nine tracks above were done, it was about 9pm and time for the set-up for Honky to get underway.

Before I get to the headliners though, I want to finish off my DS feedback. At the end of the evening, Hughesy and I spent some time chatting to the band members in the beer garden (I use that term loosely, no greenery evident at all, much tarmac instead). They were happy to converse, there was no standoffishness or any sense of celebrity-style-superiority – just a decent band and a decent bunch of guys too. Chris White (guitarist) and I spent a while chatting about F1 (my earlier digression relevancy reason two). He is a firm Hamilton fan too.

Honky  
By way of background, Honky is an American three piece band that harks from Austin, Texas. The band members are J.D. Pinkus (Bass/vocals), Bobby Ed Landgraf (guitar/vocals) and Trinidad Leal (drums/vocals), all are seasoned rockers with multiple, well known bands on their CVs. The style of music is a kind of sleazy, southern-style hard rock.   

Honky is on a 23 date European tour, concluding next week, which included 12 UK dates (where Desert Storm supported in more ways than one – more on that later).

At 9:15 Honky took to the stage. J.D. and Bobby Ed, both long-bearded, tattooed and wearing white straw Honky branded (via embossed leather hat bands) cowboy hats made a pairing that, to me, was reminiscent of ZZ Top…but more hillbilly. During the set the two would occasionally doff their hats to each other and then to the audience.   

J.D. played a smart looking aluminium flying ‘V’ bass and spoke with a Texan drawl that I couldn’t follow at all during the set (though bizarrely when I spoke to him after the gig, I had no such trouble understanding him).

Bobby Ed, with his broad brimmed hat, thin face and long beard looked a bit rat like to me but he had/has a ready smile and he played his Gibson Les Paul with phenomenal skill - at times he’d be racing through, error-free, fiddly, technical solos with his eyes closed. Respect!

I have an electric guitar and I can’t even play my chords properly without paying close attention to where my left hand is on the neck (and even then duff notes and other errors are inevitable).  Hughesy, a guitar player too (though much, much better than me) was in awe of Bobby Ed. On a few occasions before the gig even started, he’d made a point of saying that “Langraf is good, really good”! And of course, Hughesy was right.  

The Honky set was significant – see below.

1. Corduroy
2. Sancha
3. Plugs, Mugs, Jugs
4. Buckle Bunny
5. Double Fine
6. Ain’t got the time
7. Don’t Shoot
8. Riddle Cap
9. Woke Up Dead
10. Undertaker
11. All For Nothin
12. Baby Don’t Slow Down
13. Snortin’ Whisky
14. Love To Smoke Your Weed
15. Walkin’ On Moonshine
16. Outta Season
17. WFO
18. Just A Man
19. Smokin’ Weed With Helios Creed
20. She’s Mad

Stand out tracks for me were three and ten.

If Bobby Ed hadn’t given me a set list at the end of the gig, there’s no way I could have kept track of this haul of songs. You might think from the above that the band played all night but at roughly three minutes a track, the set was all done in about an hour.  

For the final song, Bobby Ed handed over his guitar to Chris White from Desert Storm then left the stage and joined the audience. What a sign of respect/endorsement from a famous rocker. Chris played all the way through “She’s Mad” like he was a full time member of the band; his performance was seriously impressive.  Bobby Ed meanwhile was entertaining the punters, posing in selfies and having a good time in front of the stage.

And having a good time is a good way to sum up the event for everyone in attendance – the band members included. It may have been a Sunday night in Wolverton, but the guys from Honky looked like they were having fun and were pleased to be there. They didn’t just disappear after the show either, there were fans to chat to, photographs to be taken (with said fans) and merchandise to sign.

After the show, I went to the merchandising stall and bought “Corduroy”, Honky’s latest album and “Balls Out Inn”. Bobby Ed made an effort to find a Sharpie marker pen and then all the band members signed my CDs. Bobby Ed shook my hand, asked my name and then remembered it later too.

Returning to the beer-not-quite-garden (mentioned earlier); in discussing the tour with the fellas from Desert Storm, I found out that the guys had picked up the Honkies from an airport in Scotland and that all of them had been travelling around together since. They all got along well and there was some mutual respect evident on the stage and off it too.  

All in all I had an excellent night (Hughesy has similar feedback) and will see either band again any chance I get.

​Reflecting on the Honky experience, it amazes me that you one can see a non-UK band that is this good in such a small venue like the Craufurd (and for such a reasonable ticket price). I am increasingly a fan of this venue (other notable experiences have included “The Atomic Bitchwax” and “Samsara Blues Experiment”) and am already looking through the upcoming bookings to find my next outing.

By way of an encore, I listened to Corduroy as I drove home. And it has been played through many times since.​

Photos by Hughesy - click to enlarge

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The Craufurd Arms

Previous Desert Storm posts
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/desert-storm-at-the-craufurd-arms-a-gig-review
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/eating-drinking-and-rocking-on-the-cowley-road
http://www.adrianbaldwin.net/blog/desert-storm-and-some-other-noisy-bastards