PR Words to Ban
Posted: Tue 4 August, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Charm School, Creativity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Just a quickie, but I love this TechCrunch article about “10 words I would love to see banned from press releases”
Thankfully I don’t get too many press releases, but I see enough of them online that I have to agree with pretty much all of what’s been said in this one…
Wembley Stadium Parking Revisited
Posted: Thu 9 July, 2009 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, D4D™, Music, Reviews(ish), Wembley Stadium Parking 1 Comment »Ten days ago (roughly) I was at Wembley Stadium, and at the end of the evening had a total farce of a time getting out of the car parks. The following morning, I sent off a complaint email to both CS Parking and Wembley Stadium’s “customer services” people.
In fairness to CS Parking, I got a response back pretty quickly from the MD of the company – impressive in itself – after which there was a fairly long email ‘conversation’ about what had happened. That all got closed off by last Friday (i.e. a week after the even) and was all fine. I still think the parking situation is
- Shit
- Unmanaged for people leaving Wembley Stadium
- Farcical
but I can at least now understand why it’s shit, unmanaged, and a total Grade One ClusterFuck.
Wembley Stadium’s customer services, on the other hand, have only just come back to me today, and their email is rather more of a “Not our problem, mate. Go complain to someone else” effort…
All event day parking is managed by a contracted 3rd party; City & Suburban Parking in partnership with the local authority Brent Council and the Metropolitan Police.
The official car parks were full, accommodating in excess of 3,000 cars and in addition there were approx 3,000 cars parked in unauthorised car parks and a further 1,000 vehicles collecting from the area after the concert. As a result of the high volume of traffic, there were delays clearing the car parks the main car parks were not clear until 1½ hours after the end of the concert. We do not believe that these delays are acceptable however the local roads are under the control of Brent Council, not Wembley Stadium. We will be reviewing the exit plans with Brent Council and the Metropolitan Police for future concert events.
Thank you once again for contacting us. We hope you will be able to visit Wembley Stadium again in the future.
Considering that I’ve since had comments here on D4D from people who had the same problem with Wembley Stadium’s Parking after the Take That concerts, I think it’s fair to say that you’re actually far better off if you can avoid using the car parking at Wembley Stadium. Well, either that or make use of the “pirate” car parks around the stadium, rather than the Stadium’s piece-of-shit “official” car parking.
Complaint to Wembley Stadium’s Parking people
Posted: Sat 27 June, 2009 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Driving, Wembley Stadium Parking 7 Comments »Ah, I do love writing letters of complaint. In this case, it’s about the car parking at Wembley Stadium, and the exit nightmare…
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to you to complain in the strongest possible terms about the farcical car-parking situation at Wembley Stadium. I understand that it is primarily a “public transport” venue – however, National Express don’t do coaches to anywhere within 40 miles of my location, so driving was the only way to come to Wembley Stadium.
Last night, after the AC/DC concert, we left the Stadium by 11pm, and didn’t get to leave the car-park ’til 12.15am. 75 minutes to get out of a car-park (we were in Green Car Park, on Level 4, so there was only one ramp to go down in order to exit the venue) is simply not an acceptable time. The O2 manages to get people out within ten minutes, mainly because they have parking attendants guiding and managing the traffic.
In a venue like Wembley Stadium, where so much thought has been given to managing the flow of people out of the stadium, it’s deeply bizarre to then have absolutely no thought or management of the car parking. Getting away from the Stadium is, by necessity, the last thing one remembers: it is the freshest memory, and colours the judgement of the entire event. In this case, while the concert itself was fantastic, the parking and exit strategy is going to be enough to make me severely reluctant to visit Wembley Stadium again. I would rather go to a venue like the O2 where the exit policy is smooth, organised and rapid than go to Wembley Stadium where it is nothing short of farcical and shambolic. Paying £25 for the privilege of being stuck for an hour and a quarter is just adding insult to injury, I’m afraid.
I look forward to hearing your response to this complaint.
Sincerely
Lyle
See, and not a swearword in place! I wonder what the response will be?
Yuck 2
Posted: Fri 12 June, 2009 Filed under: Charm School, Domestic, Geeky, Weirdness Leave a comment »In other news, Panasonic have released a very strange (and really quite creepy) prototype for a new remote control unit.
This conceptual gel remote from Panasonic lays limp when not in use, pulsating with a soft light. But when its sensors detect a hand coming, it stiffens, ready for action!
Thankfully, it’s a prototype and not released yet – otherwise I’d have thought twice about buying the new Panasonic DVD-Player/Speakers I’ve just got…
Ross Kemp
Posted: Tue 2 June, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Charm School, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »I notice on Sky that they’re doing a programme/series called “Ross Kemp in Search of Pirates“.
Now, can we just get “Ross Kemp held to Ransom”, make it a public appeal (in the vein of JustGiving or whatever) and see just how many people actually want to see the tosspot get released.
Mind you, I suspect more people would pay to see the twat tied up and in fear of his life than would pay to see him freed and/or on TV again.
Forecaster
Posted: Thu 21 May, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Sweary Leave a comment »(via Sevitz)
Now this is how a weather forecast should be done.
When can we get the BBC weather to be like this?