Sleeping Hound

Posted: Sat 26 December, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | Leave a comment »

This is a perfect example of why sometimes it can be really funny to have Hound around, despite how fucking annoying she can be on other occasions…

Hound, asleep, leaning out of her basket

At this point she was fast asleep...

Yes, fast asleep, leaning out of the basket. No good reason.

And despite the reflection of the camera flash from her eye, she was asleep. Bizarre beast.

Fixed It

Posted: Fri 25 December, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: General | Leave a comment »

One of my guilty pleasures this year has been the site There, I Fixed It, which showcases some of the most awesome bodges and hacks around.

It’s also a spectacular showcase of the inventiveness (if occasional stupidity/weirdness) that people exhibit towards fixing problems.

Snow

Posted: Thu 24 December, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Norfolk, Weather | 1 Comment »

I didn’t get round to posting this before, but this is indicative of the amount of snow we had in our part of Norfolk.

The snow we had in Norfolk

Snow Depth

And yes, I know, people in America and Canada (and anyone else who gets serious snow on a regular basis) is pissing themselves laughing right now at how little it takes for the UK to go to pot.

Bye, Borders

Posted: Wed 23 December, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Business, Norfolk, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Apparently, today is the last day of trading for the Borders bookstores.

I went past the Norwich branch yesterday, and that’s already closed. It’s a sad sight, a bookshop filled with empty sets of shelving.

Scrapers

Posted: Wed 23 December, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Advertising, Business, Creativity | 3 Comments »

On occasion, I just wonder whether my brain works slightly differently to “most peoples”. Today has contained one of those occasions.

If you were running a car-hire company, would you put an ice-scraper in each car during the winter months?

I know I would – having today had to go and buy a new one. (I’ve got one in the normal car, of course – but not in the hire one. Fuckers)

I’m sure that the excuse for not doing so would be “because of the cost” when people take the scrapers for themselves afterwards. Me, I’d put some branding/advertising on them, and job done – I don’t know how much return business you’d get, but every winter those people would be seeing the name of the hire company, and be reminded of it.

Enterprise Car Hire, that’s yet another bloody trick you’re missing.

Competition Prize

Posted: Tue 22 December, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

I just got a promotional email from Travelodge, with the tag line “Win a weekend at a Travelodge”

I wonder what the second prize is. Two weekends?

Crunch – Enterprise Day Two

Posted: Tue 22 December, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Driving, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Following on from Friday’s fuck-ups with Enterprise Car Hire, we’d organised for the Norwich office to come and collect me between 10 and 11am, bringing me back to the Norwich office to do the paperwork and collect the car to drive home. Simple, you’d have thought. But no – because Enterprise Car Hire are a bunch of abysmally slack useless bastards.

Just before 10, they called to say that because of the condition of the roads (which were OK for the main roads, but a bit dodgy on back roads) they wouldn’t make it for 10-11, and would instead come over between 2 and 3. Fine with me, at least I knew what was going on.

Except, well, that’s not what they actually did. Instead, they gave the job back to the useless fuckbags at the Diss office. (which I’d explicitly asked to not happen, as Diss office were – um – useless fuckbags) The people at the Diss office decided to bring a car to me – why they did this and used up two of the three staff at Diss, rather than coming over to pick me up, as Norwich had planned to do is a mystery – and supposedly left Diss at 1pm.

After lots of phone calls to the Diss and Norwich branches, the car eventually turned up at 5.15. If the Diss office of Enterprise Car Hire are to be believed (and that’s a bit of a leap) it took them four and a quarter hours to travel 20 miles.

I’ve got the car for two weeks for sure, and we’ll see what happens after that. I can’t wait to see how Diss fuck up the returning of the car. Still, so long as they don’t charge me for whatever they fuck up, that’ll be fine.

As it is, I’m just glad I’ve finally got the car. It means at least I’ll be able to get in to work tomorrow, and sort out the stuff that’s waiting for me there.

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