This is an old blog – created when I was defiantly a Conservative. Possibly the only one from Hull. Hence the name. Now there are more Conservatives in Hull. And I am no longer a Conservative. In my heart I am a Conservative – but as I’ve made clear over the past couple of years, the party has moved so far away from me that I struggle to recognise it at times. I do want to vote Conservative and if I don’t vote for them this time, I want to feel able to in the future. So this page is … Continued
I started writing this back in summer, when I’d had a few too many roast dinners by myself and was also struggling to find someone to go on holiday with me. Like the majority of my blog posts nowadays, by time I get around to publishing my thoughts, my thoughts have changed…or perhaps more realistically my reality has changed. It isn’t so much that I don’t have enough friends, but that they are all dispersed around the world doing their own thing. Which is exactly what I have done by moving to London. The dream is to travel back 10-12 … Continued
I’ve always lumped Corfu in with the likes of Magaluf and Faliraki. It is an island that I would likely never have visited were it not for the requirement to get the ferry to my end destination, Ksamil in Albania, from Corfu. Whilst I could have arrived early and gone straight to the ferry to go to Albania, I decided to be a bit more leisurely and have an evening in Corfu Town itself. My Airbnb was top notch, in terms of affordability, location and charm. I could quite happily have stayed there longer, and even more important, it was … Continued
Dear Hell Trains I had the misfortune of experiencing your air conditioning lottery with full force a few weeks back. I was travelling from Hull to London on Sunday 1st July, circa 14:30. I arrived at Paragon Station to be informed that there was no air conditioning in coach C, and that there was nowhere else for me to sit either. You could say I was fuming. Literally. And I hate the word ‘literally’. Originally I hoped to do some work on the train, although I know how patchy your wi-fi is (patchy being kind but this was the least … Continued
I guess as part of the HR checks, M&S didn’t think to look through their customer complaints to see if potential employees had ever written to them. Phew. Here’s one that I can publish, now I’ve passed my probation. From 2018. Yeah I have a backlog of these things. ****** Dear M&S A few weeks ago, I had a birthday. Actually, it was a few months ago, but hey, the point still stands. I’ve already lost track of what I was going to say. Yeah I’m one of those complaint writers that always writes some long-winded nonsense that you really … Continued
I was starting to crack a little. The last couple of months have seen multiple amounts of frustration and my anger levels rising – lets leave out the clusterfuck of Brexit for a moment (though worth mentioning), but things more directly in my control. I moved banks. Supposed to be easy but I had so many issues once moved, from randomly cancelled direct debits, to much more limited information supplied by First Direct on their online banking, and then having 3 separate passwords for their system and not being able to remember which was which, hence getting locked out constantly … Continued
So this is the last of the blog posts that have been long-outstanding on my to-do list to write. Well, except for a review of 2018 and my goals for 2019…I think I might just skip them now! Budapest had been on my radar for a little while, and it seemed that rarely a month went by without my Facebook feed having photographs from a friend or some random that I met once, visiting the capital of Hungary. After enlisting two of my closest advisors, we set upon finding some gloriously cheap flights with Wizzair that weren’t really that cheap … Continued
This is from last year, another one that has been hanging around my inbox: Oh TFL The imaginary ink has barely dried on the last complaint and now you have given me cause to write to you again. You do waste enough of my time as it is, without then having to write to complain about your journey refund decision. Last Wednesday I arrived at Harrow-On-The-Hill station around 8:15am. I got onto the waiting fast train. It hissed at me – like my imaginary girlfriend does when I use up too much of her imaginary ink. It hissed some more. … Continued
You may have noticed that I haven’t posted on The Only Tory From Hull much over the last year or two. I couldn’t even remember how to log in the other day. My interest in politics has by no means diminished and neither has my passion…the latter has been entrenched. A lot of that has to do with simply being far too busy. But I can always make time to write a blog post if I feel passionate enough about something. The real reason, I feel, comes down to a mixture of confusion and misery. I shall start with the … Continued
I used to be a huge fan of Boris Johnson. Hell, even as recently as 2015, I said (and I cannot quite believe I wrote this), “But I do really want Boris as leader, He would be an inspirational leader. He would really take our country forward and I feel that he would be able to deliver a two-term Conservative majority. He has that common touch.”. After all, he supported immigration, he defended bankers, he attacked murderous bastards like Assad, he supported Britain being in the EU, and especially the Single Market. Didn’t he? He seemed a liberal Conservative, which … Continued