Typos
Posted: Thu 27 September, 2018 Filed under: Advertising, Geeky, Marketing, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »Note 1 : Owing to Muphry’s Law , there will likely be at least one typo in this post.
Note 2 : It may also induce eye-crossing rage/despair in some.
Anyway – this week I’ve had two emails containing images that include typos (or just piss off my pedantry) The first came from Cotton Traders.
Seriously, how the hell does that make it through umpteen proof-readers, editors, and marketing twerds? #rage
The second was a promo for a novel, and I’ve trimmed it down to just the bit that grated on me.
This one is a bit more pedantic – but it grinds my gears anyway. “A prickly woman” is fine. But crossing out the “Prickly” makes it “A Independent Woman” – which isn’t right. Find another word for “prickly” (which they’ve chosen because the title of the book is “The Cactus”) that starts with a vowel, or a synonym for independent that starts with a consonant. Then it works. And wouldn’t annoy pedants.
Anyway, now I’ve shared my irritation. You’re welcome.
Missing Bits
Posted: Mon 27 August, 2018 Filed under: Car Repairs, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Stupidity, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »I think that the worst bit of having one’s car in the garage (except for the bill at the end) is that you never ever remember to take all the useful stuff out of the current car to put in the replacement one.
Usually, it’s not even the stuff you think of as actually being useful, until the time comes that it’s needed, and then you think “Oh. Cock.” (or words to that effect)
In my case this time there’ve been three times this weekend where I’ve thought that.
The first was really simple – shopping bags. I have re-usable “bag for life” things in the boot of the car. Did I think about needing them when I left the car at the garage? Did I bollocks.
Then the weather changed (it’s a Bank Holiday in the UK, so it’s usually piss-wet, but I didn’t think about that during the week) and chucked down a load of rain. So where’s my waterproof jacket that I haven’t used all year? In the car. Along with the umbrella. Sod.
And finally, when I was eating a packaged salad thing outside the other office in Chesham, where’s the cutlery I keep in the car? Yep, it’s in the car. Just not the right one. For fuck’s sake.
It’s nothing world-ending, obviously. It’s just irritating, because it’s also stuff I just hadn’t thought about. Which makes me feel like a bit of a tit. (Not that that’s anything new or unusual, obviously)
A Different Value of New
Posted: Wed 28 March, 2018 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Sweary, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »Out of interest, how the hell do the BBC get to promote a show as “Brand New!” when it’s been exhumed from the 80s and 90s (and potentially the 2000s, too)
Yes, I’m referring to the “Brand New… Generation Game“.
What. The. Absolute. Fuck?
For Fuck’s Sake
Posted: Fri 15 September, 2017 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Marketing, Shopping, Sweary Leave a comment »
Last night, I went in to my local Tesco.
And was greeted with this.
No, Tesco. It’s September. So you, and your “Christmas is coming” bollocks can fuck right off.
Saturday – Slow
Posted: Wed 16 August, 2017 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, D4D™, Domestic, Health, London, People, Sweary, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »While I was walking in London two weekends ago, I posted a ranty bith on Facebook, asking
HOW DO PEOPLE LIVE, WALK AND THINK SO FUCKING SLOWLY, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE?!?!?
To which Gordon asked how I live with being so irrationally angry to others. The answer to that ended up as a bit of a rant, but was still absolutely true, and I thought I’d add it here as well, rather than losing it to the vagaries of Facebook.
That answer was this…
In fairness, my friend, if any of them had any awareness of what was around them, I’d be fine.
I fully acknowledge I walk a buttload faster than most people, and think/move/avoid at similar pace. I take on at least 90-95% of the responsibilities for getting out the way, and for understanding/accepting that difference.
All I ask – well, hope for – is for people to have the ability to see this fast-moving juggernaut of a human being, AND NOT WALK AT ME.
Fair enough, I’m enough of a fat bastard that I obviously create a gravity well and people just fall at me. I get that, I accept it. But they could make a bit of sodding effort.
It’s not even like I’m hard to see. But still these motherfuckers walk at me, stop in my path, decide to suddenly stop and take selfies (which is how I’ll end up on fucking Crimewatch, I just know it) or just look me dead in the eye, stop, and see what I’ll do, like they’re expecting me to slam into them.
So yeah, if there were even a smidge of acknowledgement, avoidance, observation, or even just a conscious fucking thought, I’d be fine.
But no. None of it. So you get the rants.
All told, it was a bit of a throwback to the D4D of old…
PIDU : Missing the Main Attraction
Posted: Mon 8 May, 2017 Filed under: 1BEM, Cinema, Gigs, I Don't Understand, London, People, Seeing Films, Sweary, Thoughts 1 Comment »[PIDU = People I Don’t Understand]
There are many, many types of people I don’t understand – or at least whose thought processes are beyond me. That’s the theme of the PIDU posts (as mentioned here, although I’ll probably repeat this a few times) and may also become a bit of a throwback to the rants of yore. It may also just fade out. We’ll see.
Anyway, one of the many things that are beyond me are the people who turn up for a concert – indeed, a performance of any kind, really – or a film, and then keep on going out, or chatting, or really doing anything that doesn’t involve focusing on that main act.
In the cinema, it boggles my mind. People will rock up late, when the film’s already started. They’ll sit for a bit, eat their sodding popcorn, slurp their bastard drinks, and before you know it, they’ve got to go to the toilet. (I assume. They never come back having purchased more food or drink, anyway) Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people, that they can’t manage to control their bladders for a couple of hours so they can sit and watch a film they’ve paid good money to see? Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever had to walk out of a film in order to have a slash. Even in the five-ish hour Alien/Prometheus double-bill the other week.
I get it, some people have bladder issues, or continence issues, and there are other complaints along the way. But I haven’t been to a film in years where no-one walks out at some point in the showing, and then comes back. Yes, those issues exist, but a) so do preventive measures and things to cater for those issues, and b) I truly don’t believe that the issues are so prevalent that it affects that many people in Milton Keynes.
And then, of course, we get to the fuckknuckles who go to concerts and performances, and chat to their mates all the way through – a lot of the time barely even looking at the stage. If they are looking, these self-absorbed vacuous twatwoggles are filming the performance/act on their bastard phones and tables, and screwing things up for everyone behind them.
What’s the point? Why would you pay £20-50 per head to go to a concert and then not bother watching/listening? If all you want to do is drink beer and talk bollocks, you might as well save the ticket money, and fuck off to the pub. Let more people in that want to see the actual gig, rather than making them listen to your braying laugh and piss-awful “banter”. (speaking of which, anyone who uses the word “banter” or “bantz/bants” to describe their interactions with friends is a fuckwitted jizzwizard by definition) Just cock off and spend your money on lukewarm piss at a Wetherspoons round the corner.
At some point, it’s all going to annoy me enough that I walk up to one of these spaffbuckles and just ask what went through their minds, why they decided to go to a gig and then ignore it all, and just chat. It’s happened before, and all I got in return was a look of blank incomprehension (I’m pretty sure it was their default expression, in fairness) but it fascinates me, I want to know why they’ve decided that those actions are a good plan.
Maybe one day I’ll find out. But I can’t see it being any time soon, because those doing it don’t have the introspection or self-awareness to be able to explain those processes.
On Dealing with Lying Cunts
Posted: Tue 2 August, 2016 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Domestic, Legal, People, Rebuilding, Sweary, Thoughts 7 Comments »As regular readers know, in August 2012 I was declared bankrupt. No fun, but well, I’m not going to rehash old ground on that score.
In February 2013, I opened a basic current account with Barclays, having explained my ongoing bankruptcy and telling them that as time went on, I would want/hope/expect to be able to rebuild my credit score etc. with Barclays. I was told that was no problem, that once the bankruptcy was discharged (which happened in August 2013, fact fans) I could start to rebuild, and could regularly check whether my account was suitable for an upgrade to a ‘proper’ (my word, not theirs) current account, with overdraft facility etc., and continue to rebuild my fiscal profile.
I’ve done that, and always been declined. Frustrating, but I kind-of understand why, with it being on the record, and the changing risk-profiles etc.
Three weeks ago – after three and a half years with Barclays, still on the basic account – I tried again, and was automatically declined, the classic “computer says no”, but decided to take it further. Spoke to a ‘lending manager’, who went through an appeal process and promised I’d be called back in the next 48 hours. Nothing for two weeks.
So last week, I went in again, having made an appointment to see the manager. I ended up dealing with an assistant manager at the branch, and he let slip that Barclays have a “six years from discharge” rule, so that I have no chance of a ‘proper’ current account until 2019. I will automatically be declined until that time – something that no-one at Barclays has mentioned at any time until last week. Even that ‘lending manager’ didn’t mention it, let alone the people I’ve seen before each time I’ve done this process.
I think it’s pretty shocking (and pretty cuntish – so absolutely standard for Barclays) to have a policy in place that makes no recognition of a customer’s good standing, lack of debt etc. for seven years (one year of the bankruptcy, and six after discharge) before even being considered.
It’s worth noting that I’m not actually looking for any credit – I’d like to be *able* to have an overdraft, but I don’t actually want one (if that makes sense) I’ve offered several solutions, including monthly or quarterly account reviews where I go into branch, and would be happy to do this. But Barclays simply say “Nope. Not happening”
I wouldn’t mind as much if Barclays had been honest at any point, and said “You can have a basic account, but no chance of anything else“. I’d be OK with that. I wouldn’t necessarily have gone with them, but I’d have understood their process. Instead, it’s been three-and-a-half years of being lied to, of making pointless appointments to go in and see if the account is ready to be upgraded, and now feels more like they’re just doing it to take the piss and have a laugh at my expense.
I’ve complained formally to Barclays, which should be entertaining. (I was promised a callback for last Tuesday which still hasn’t happened, so I’m not holding out any expectations of professionalism or competence from them) I’m waiting to see what happens with that, but I expect there to be no resolution, at which point it’ll go further and end up with the Financial Ombudsman. Again, entertaining.
But I’m also taking it up with a few other places – including consumer-rights places, and Advertising Standards, as Barclays keep on bleating on about how they’re so great, so fair, so “future of banking”. When really, it turns out that (unsurprisingly) they’re just lying cunts who couldn’t give a rat’s fuck about people.
Automagic – Thoughts
Posted: Tue 7 June, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, M1, Reviews(ish), SatNav, Sweary, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I hired a car – I was doing a drive to Middlesbrough, Newcastle, and back – and chose to have an automatic (as written about here) The main reason was just to see how I got on with it, as autos aren’t something I usually drive.
It was actually pretty interesting. Enterprise gave me a Ford C-Max, which is a proper boat of a thing – but all went really well. It drives a whole lot better than it looks, and it’s the most spookily quiet thing I’ve driven. There’s dark magic at work, when you’re travelling at *cough* 75 in a diesel-engined car, and can’t hear a jot of engine noise. Well, it’s either that or I’m going completely deaf. (Hint : It’s not the latter) Interestingly, that makes it quite hard (for me) to hold to a speed – it turns out that I drive far more by the noise of the engine than looking at the speedo/revs (which also explains why I speed up when I turn the radio volume up) Thankfully, it also comes with cruise control, and a speed limiter.
The journey up was pretty easy – and very lazy, with not having to change gear at all – but didn’t give me a great ability to test my preferences between auto and manual.
However, the journey back really showed the benefits. There’d been an accident on the M1 up in Leicestershire (nothing major, a two-vehicle thing that spread across the two outside lanes) and the queues were insane – mainly because there were so many fuckknuckle cunts who belt along, ignoring the ‘lanes closed’ signs, and wait ’til the last possible minute before pulling in to the only open lane, thus jamming things up for everyone else.
As an aside, I strongly believe that the speed cameras should be activated on every gantry where the “lane closed” signs are operative, and should catch every single driver who ignores the warnings and stays in those lanes. Simple driving without due care and attention, £60 fine in the post. Not (necessarily) even points on the licence – the cunts would soon learn when it started being expensive.
Anyway, those tailbacks were, if not a joy, at least a lot easier. No need for endless gearchanges, clutch etc., just plod and stop, plod and stop. I’m still not a fan of the auto-stop/start technology on modern cars, but even that worked fine all the way through, so I confess that I’m less unconvinced than I was. (And yes, I know, double negative etc. etc.)
Once past that, it was an easy ride again. I was impressed by the satnav in the car, picking up a further closure on the M1 and automatically rerouting. I know it’s pretty standard (or should be) but it hasn’t happened in any of the other hire cars I’ve played in this year, so it was a nice touch.
I think if I were to end up doing a lot of city/motorway driving again for commuting etc., I’d seriously consider getting a car with an automatic gearbox now. It doesn’t completely match my driving style at present – I still had a couple of moments of acceleration (particularly when pulling away from a junction, and when coming out into traffic) where I wasn’t happy with how the auto ‘box handled things, as it either over-revved and/or bogged down, until I let up the accelerator and re-pressed it. But I acknowledge that’s my driving style, rather than the ‘box itself. I’m pretty sure that I’d quickly change my style to be a more gradual acceleration if I were to have an auto vehicle as my everyday drive.
Will I consider hiring an auto again when the travel dictates it? Yes.
So all told, pretty successful all round.
Stating The Obvious
Posted: Tue 26 April, 2016 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Sweary, Television Leave a comment »Why is it that on just about every TV competition show – X-Factor, Masterchef, Bake Off, whatever – when it comes to the semi-finals, one of the hosts always has to say
Any one of these people could win it
Of course they fucking could, they’re in the semi-sodding-final. Stop stating the bloody obvious, you fatuous bollocks-spouting cretins.
Exercise More, Feel Worse
Posted: Wed 25 February, 2015 Filed under: 2014/15, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Health, Sweary, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »The last few days have been somewhat sore.
As I’ve said before, I’ve been doing more walking with the new office location etc. Despite that (or, in my cynicism, because of it) on Saturday my back wrenched. Simply bending over to pick up a pen, and pop, gone. Ow, Ow, Fucking Ow.
It’s not as bad as it could’ve been – but is still bloody sore. Oddly, a decent walk seems to help loosen things, but the first bit of that walk hurts like fuck.
And things could be worse. I could have a cold/cough, that wracks the spine every time it happens.
Oh yes, I’ve got that too. Thanks life, health, and general body stuff. You unutterable bastard.
Hopefully it’ll all wear off before too long. In the meantime, safe to say that I feel like shit.
In the meantime, this losing weight and getting healthy (or at least healthier) crap isn’t all it’s knocked up to be, I tell you.
Shit on the Sidewalk
Posted: Thu 5 February, 2015 Filed under: 1BEM, Animals, Domestic, People, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve come to the conclusion that in some circumstances, I bloody hate dogs. Well, more the dog owners, rather than the dogs themselves. Let me explain…
Every time I walk around the village in daylight (which I do a fair amount, due to an increased rate of exercise etc.) there are areas that are just covered in dog shit. Particularly in the area where it’s footpath across fields, any time you step off the pavement (for a cyclist, or other people) you’re at risk of stepping in shit. It’s even riskier in the evenings, because you’ve no chance of seeing the fucking stuff.
There are shit bins at either end of this particular footpath, but no, these people just allow their dogs to shit and leave it. They also let it happen in the alleyways between houses – as a houseowner there, I’d be debating CCTV and/or violence. I wonder how they’d feel if I went and took a dump on their doorstep one day?
As a prospective dog owner (or indeed an actual dog owner) you must surely understand that picking up dog shit is part of the deal. I always understood that, and would pick it up wherever possible – obviously if they’ve run across miles/fields and there’s no-one ever going to go in that direction, you’re less likely to pick it up – but if it was ever near/on somewhere people would regularly walk, I picked up after Hound.
The facilities are there. Fucking use them. People piss me off.
Peter Gabriel – Wembley SSE Arena – The Downside
Posted: Fri 5 December, 2014 Filed under: Cynicism, Gigs, London, People, Reviews(ish), Sweary Leave a comment »While I loved the Peter Gabriel gig on Wednesday, it has to be said that the audience consisted of some of the biggest vagtrumpets known to Man.
I really don’t understand people – as has been said many times before – but I truly don’t get why on earth you would pay £50 or more per ticket and then spend the entire concert walking to and from the bar, or chatting to your friends instead of, you know, listening to the music and enjoying the concert.
It’s even worse when – as with the concert last night – it’s an all-seated gig, so these jizzmopping fuckflannels keep on disturbing the entire row in order to go and get drinks, come back with drinks, go to the bog, and whatever else they’re doing. It makes me want to punch them in the kidneys as they go past, just so they’ll stay in one place for a while.
Maybe I’m getting old, but I just can’t see the enjoyment in going to a gig and not really listening to the music at all.
(The one that really pissed me off though was the so-called fan, when they played one of the key tracks from that ‘So’ album said that he ‘had never heard that one before’, for fuck’s sake)
Christmas Parks
Posted: Mon 24 November, 2014 Filed under: Advertising, Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Festering Season, Marketing, People, Stupidity, Sweary Leave a comment »I don’t know when/why it started, but it now seems that part of the media’s Christmas tradition is to have a report/story about a “Christmas Park” that opens in November and closes down after one day because of its general shitness, and the resultant litany of customer complaints.
This year, the ‘honour’ has apparently gone to ‘The Magical Journey‘, which was designed/proposed by arch-tossrag Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
But really, what does anyone expect? These arseholic fucktrumpets are paying up to £20 a head to go and ‘see Santa’ – in November, in unseasonably warm/mild weather – and then get upset that it’s muddy, that they’ve got to queue for ages to see sodding Santa, and that really it’s all – gasp! – a bit shit.
Rather than talking to Trading Standards, I’d suggest probably getting mental health professionals involved, and getting every single one of those paying customers to take a good long hard look at themselves. For fuck’s sake.
Perfect Timing
Posted: Thu 31 July, 2014 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Insomnia, Sleep - or lack thereof, Sweary, Technology 4 Comments »On a totally different note, why is it that batteries in smoke alarms and CO2 detectors *always* need replacing at 4am?
Bastard bloody things.
Still, at least I now know – not that I had any doubt, and I certainly didn’t need any proof – that I can’t sleep through a CO2 alarm.
(And of course yes, I can now – because I pulled the dead/dying batteries out of the fucking thing)
Marketing/Branding Bollocks
Posted: Fri 13 December, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Charm School, Creativity, Cynicism, Design, Marketing, Sweary, Thoughts, Work-related Leave a comment »According to this article, Pantone (they’re ‘the colour people, don’t’cha know?) have decreed that this purple is “the colour of 2014”. (And fuck off, Americans, it’s ‘colour’, not bloody ‘color’)
Now, I like purple as much as the next person – I’d go so far as to say it’s probably my favourite colour. But
- This is not proper purple. It’s a kind of wanky lilac, at best. Hell, they’ve not even called it Purple – it’s “Radiant Orchid”, which might as well be a name made up by Dulux.
- You know, there are people who get paid for coming up with this kind of shit
- And there are people whose job it is to come up with names for paints. I truly hope they feel fulfilled and happy in their work. I’d want to be killing people.
- How the blue, blazing, fiddly fuck do you have a “colour of the year”, for shit’s sake?
All told it’s just marketing bollocks of the highest order.
Not Quite An Apology
Posted: Thu 3 October, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Literacy, People, Sweary, Thoughts, Words 2 Comments »One of the phrases that keeps on annoying me at the moment is the current ‘approved’ terminology for an apology
We’d like to apologise for [x]
Why does it annoy me? Because if you look at it, it’s not actually an apology. It’s a mealy-mouthed excuse. “We’d like to apologise for [x]” isn’t the same as “We are really sorry about [x]”
I know it’s probably only me that even notices this kind of thing, but regardless, it’s an annoyance.
If you’re sorry for something, say you’re sorry. Apologise. Don’t tell me that you’d like to apologise – because that’s not actually apologising. It might as well say “We’d like to apologise, but won’t, because well, fuck you”
Just say “Sorry”. Don’t wank around the bushes with it. Say you screwed up, apologise, move on.
Sweary Hypocrisy
Posted: Sun 14 April, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cinema, Cynicism, Hypocrisy, Offensive Repetition, People, Reviews(ish), Seeing Films, Sweary, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I’ve found a new source of amusement – the “Parental Guides” for films on IMDB.
A perfect example is here, for the new Tom Cruise film “Oblivion”
Why is it so amusing? For wondrous things like this…
bitch used 2 times bastard 1 time ass 4 times shit 6 times 1 use of fuck. Son-of-a-b***h is used once.
It’s the hypocrisy of it all – coupled with the tweeness. In the example above, it’s OK to write bitch, bastard and fuck, but son-of-a-bitch gets asterisked out? Fuck me.
Anchor
Posted: Thu 14 June, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Commuting, Driving, Sweary 2 Comments »I got sent this today, and loved it enough to want to share…
Don’t drive like a …
What’s next, I wonder ?
Don’t drive like a tw@ ?
Crackers for Easter
Posted: Mon 2 April, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Festering Season, Sweary 1 Comment »Over the weekend, in Sainsbury’s, I spotted packs of Easter Crackers. Yeah, like Christmas Crackers, but for Easter.
What. The. Fuck?!?
(Looking on Google, it appears that this is becoming a common thing, somehow)
I didn’t get any photos this time – I’ll try to get some next time I’m there.
But really, what the hell is going on, if Easter Crackers are now a thing?
Intrusive
Posted: Wed 29 February, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, People, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’d forgotten about this ’til now, but it annoyed me at the time.
Over the weekend, I went in to the local Asda store.Along with some other things, I bought some Diet Coke in 500ml bottles. I prefer them that way for drinking in the car, or whatever.
Anyway, I got to the till, and put them on the conveyor belt thingy. At which point the woman stood behind me pointed at them and said “Osteoporosis”.
*shrug* OK, weird. I know, but frankly what business is it of yours, lady?
Obviously she hadn’t stuck her nose in enough yet…
“That’s really bad for you, you know”
“Yep, I know. Mind you, I’ve always said that it’s either Diet Coke, or I can take up heroin instead.”
Her daughter laughed out loud.
“And I can’t imagine all that chocolate and sweetener you’re buying is going to do you any good.”
Silence.
But really, how fucking rude do you have to be, to shove your (unwanted) opinion in someone else’s face in the middle of a supermarket?
Advertising Excellence
Posted: Wed 29 February, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Charm School, People, Sweary Leave a comment »Apparently, the ASA has told Sofa King to stop using this advert because of its rude phrasing…
Advert for Sofa King
I can’t understand what their problem is…
Ian Corbett and Toyota Ireland – Retraction Of Comments
Posted: Thu 8 September, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, D4D™, People, Stupidity, Sweary, Toyota IE 7 Comments »Following a request from his legal advisers, I am retracting these comments forthwith, and have deleted the original post(s) to reflect this. I apologise for any harm caused.
(This retraction has been approved by Gore Grimes Solicitors. My personal view hasn’t changed, but legal stuff prevails over personal opinion, it seems. Maybe next time he’ll remember about BCC, and privacy concerns resulting therefrom)
Ho Effing Ho
Posted: Thu 16 December, 2010 Filed under: Art, Charm School, Festering Season, People, Shopping, Sweary 3 Comments »
Nice to see that someone else feels roughly the same way about the Festering Season as I do…
In this case,
a ‘disgruntled employee’ of Harrods disabled the correct lights until he could spell out his feelings to Harrods bosses and Christmas shoppers alike. He was removed by security guards after an hour-long stand-off, then handed over to police.
It could be is photoshopped, I don’t know. But it is excellent. (Updated : The story is originally from The Poke, a spoof news site. The original photo pre-photoshop is visible here.)
FO at Christmas
WTF
Posted: Fri 17 September, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, People, Stupidity, Sweary Leave a comment »Every so often a story in the news just makes me say “What. The. Fuck?” – this one is one of those stories.
Children at a school near Selby have had a play break cancelled and hard ball games banned after neighbours complained to the council about noise.
Barlby Community Primary School has also put up a soundproof fence because it fears a noise abatement order.
So people who live near a school – and one assumes, have either a) lived there for a while, or b) moved in thinking it would be nice and quiet (because they’re shit-for-brains morons) – complain that the school is noisy at play time.
You really have to wonder sometimes. In the town where I grew up, a housing estate was built that backed on to the local sewage farm. People who moved into those houses complained about the smell, and tried to get the (pre-existing) sewage farm shut down. When I was in Manchester people who moved in to one part of the city centre complained about the noise from the bars, and tried to get them shut down.
If you’re that fucking stupid that you move near a school, or a bar, or a sewage farm, and only then complain that there’s a problem, then you don’t deserve to be allowed to complain. Live with it, and shut the fuck up. You moron.
Scrabble
Posted: Sun 5 September, 2010 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, iPhone, Literacy, Sweary 6 Comments »One of the addictions I do have with the iPhone at the moment is the Scrabble® App. It’s not perfect – it cheats, and uses some really dodgy Americanised (sorry, Americanized) words which drive me barmy. But it’s fun, and I’m playing it way too much.
Today though I had a small dollop of success – allbeit in a silly and sweary way.
Yep, I got to swear properly in Scrabble. Aces.
Yes, the word ‘cunt’ in scrabble. And it was allowed! (Scored OK too…)
The full board here…
Can you tell what it is yet?
Shit for Brains
Posted: Fri 20 August, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, People, Sweary, Thoughts 1 Comment »I love the story on the BBC this week about a council who’ve used the word “shit” in their adverts about dog-fouling. (even though it’s starred out to “S**T”) Supposedly a number of people have complained about the word “S**T” appearing in print. Which strikes me as pretty Mary Whitehouse at the best of times.
Way back when I was working with the council in Oldham, this was something that we discussed heavily. One of my projects there was working on a lexicon of expressions that people actually used, and then translating them into council-ese. For example “roadworks” becomes “Highways maintenance”, “bins” becomes “refuse collection” and the like. I always said – and could prove with the search logs (pardon the pun) – that “dog shit” was the most common search-term when people were looking for information about dog-fouling, reporting issues with dog-shit etc. But the powers-that-be in the council at the time were very sure – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that having “shit” in the lexicon was A Bad Thing, and would lead to Bad Press – another Very Bad Thing. Considering that most people at the time used the word “Shit” as pretty much synonymous with that council in general anyway, I always figured they were on a hiding to nothing on that one.
Personally I could never figure out why people thought – and obviously still do think – that councils can’t use words like shit, when they’re the ones that most (if not all) of their constituents/inhabitants use.
*sigh* People are strange.
Buzzy
Posted: Wed 21 July, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Norfolk, Sweary Leave a comment »I’m sure I’ve mentioned this in previous years, but in Summer our house gets a real influx of houseflies – particularly in the kitchen, but really through the place. And they drive me mad.
We can’t find a reason for them coming in – the walls have been filled with cavity-wall insulation, the kitchen units have been replaced, nothing’s dead/rotting/stinking/festering in the kitchen or house at all, and yet every year we get all these sodding flies. It’s not quite “Biblical Plague” of the buzzy little bastards, but it’s enough to drive me mental.
Hound’s not keen on them either – collies are renowned for their fly-chasing activities, so she keeps on chasing them and trying to eat them – and in that aspect I guess I must be part-collie. I use a fly-swatter rather than trying to catch the little flying shitbags in my mouth, but I admit I can get quite obsessive about it.
I don’t know what else we can do, though. Fly-paper is bloody ugly, the ultra-viole(n)t bugzappers are monstrous on power, and fly-spray’s even worse than fly-swatters- although spray doesn’t leave bug-bits on the walls/ceiling.
I think it’s just one of those things with living in the area – other people we know have similar issues here, so it’s not just our place. That’s some kind of reassurance, I suppose. Not much, though.
Motherf…..
Posted: Sat 1 May, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, People, Sweary Leave a comment »I love Tim Minchin – not all the time, but when he hits a target he really hits it.
Do NOT play the video if you’re offended by “Fuck”, or have serious positive views/beliefs about Catholicism, the Pope, and the entire Paedophile Priests thing.
Tim Minchin’s Pope Song
If not though, go for your life. You’ll need speakers on, but man is it worth it.
Ha
Posted: Thu 19 November, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Sweary Leave a comment »
Well, can you?
I promise, it wasn’t me that wrote this. I just wish it had been.
Caught on your own spike
Posted: Fri 13 November, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Sweary 1 Comment »Following on from all the guff this week about Gordon Brown supposedly mis-spelling the name of Jamie Janes in a letter of condolence (and it really does take a special kind of sanity/logic to name your child with almost-matching first and surnames, doesn’t it?) and the Sun’s hate campaign about it, I just love this…
Yes, they mis-spelled it too
But of course it’s OK for the Sun to mis-spell it (as “Jones”, in case anyone cared) and not incur the wrath of – um – The Sun.
Hypocritical fuckers.
Unsalted
Posted: Sat 19 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Health, Norfolk, People, Stupidity, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »Sometimes you read a story and your mind boggles right out of its tiny capsule.
In this case, it’s a story about Norfolk’s Trading Standards launching a campaign to get people to reduce their salt intake. “How?”, I hear you cry. Well, like this…
New saltshakers with fewer holes have provided for fish and chip shops in Norfolk to help cut salt consumption. The saltshakers only have five holes and dispense 50% less salt than the usual 17-hole versions.
What ?!?
So this ‘campaign’ is only in the 400-ish fish-and-chip places in Norfolk. If you’re in a chippy, I somehow suspect that the salt in it is far less of a long-term risk than the amount of fat that’s going into that meal. But no, we’ll focus on the salt. Genius.
And what the fuck has it got to do with Trading Standards? Are people no longer judged to have enough personal responsibility to manage their own salt levels on their food?
I despair. I truly do.
Un-fucking-Believable (Part 4)
Posted: Mon 7 September, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Customer Services, National Express East Anglia, Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from the rest of the story, today was the day that NEEA put the prices way up for my ticket from Attleborough to London.
The sole explanation of this anywhere on the station platform was one sheet of A4 paper wrapped in plastic sticky-taped to one noticeboard, which explained (and I may be paraphrasing slightly here…)
Because we’re profiteering fuckwit bastards, the line between Norwich and Cambridge has now been deemed a ‘peak-line’ train, which means we’ll rip you the fuck off for a full-price ticket until 10am.
This is to bring this service in line with other services leaving London. In other words, live with it, and we’ll take your money. Suckers.
The excuse of ‘bringing this service in line with others leaving London’ would be almost fine, if it weren’t for one or two very fucking significant points.
Point the First
The line between Cambridge and Norwich doesn’t go anywhere near London. At all. To travel to/from London, you’ve got to change first at Cambridge or Norwich. There is NO direct service.
Point the Second
Off-Peak tickets for leaving london only apply (according to NEEA’s own T&Cs) for trains arriving in London before 10am. The 7.55am service gets in to London Kings Cross at – um – 10.15am. Leaving at 7.55, in fact, there is no fucking way I can get to London before 10am.
In most cases the off peak day travelcard is not available for travel on trains arriving in London* before 1000 or departing from London before 0930. Travel is also not permitted on services departing from London* between 1629 and 1834 Monday to Friday, except for travel to stations between Hatfield Peverel and Braintree inclusive on the 1636 departure from London.
So all told, it just looks like a massive profiteering move on NEEA‘s part to double the prices and grab as much profit as humanly possible.
In the meantime, I’ve complained to NEEA direct, although I’m willing to bet that they don’t even bother responding. I’ll add the complaint letter as a post on D4D™ sometime this week, just for fun. I’m also going to be writing properly, rather than just in email – and I suspect a copy might make it’s way to the local papers etc. too…
Sweary Of The Day
Posted: Fri 4 September, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Driving, Sweary Leave a comment »I know, it’s pimping an ad almost certainly meant to be a viral anyway – but still, this ad from Volkswagen made me laugh…
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?
Wayfarer Software
Posted: Mon 4 May, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary, Technology Leave a comment »The (far nicer than I could have been) email I’ve just sent to Wayfarer Software’s customer services/support team…
I would like a refund on my Navigator software – purchase no [whatever] . I had to use it properly for the first time on Friday while driving in London, and it’s the most abysmal heap of junk known to man.
The calibration is consistently 400 ft out, which leads to regularly being told to turn onto the road you’ve just passed – particularly in London. In addition, the navigator was trying to send me in completely the wrong direction (northbound round the M25 to get to Greenwich in south London).
I plan to buy a TomTom instead of ever using the Wayfarer software again.
Please let me know what I need to do in order to get a refund on my Wayfarer license, as in my experience it is utterly unfit for purpose.
Sincerely
Lyle
What I should have written would’ve been something like…
Dear Fuckbricks,
Refund my licence for the Wayfarer software now, because it sucks the bollocks of dead porcupines. The fucking thing couldn’t find it’s own arse, let alone find it’s way round London.
Your developers have wasted years of their lives writing this piece of shit. It’s not worth the fucking memory card it’s stored on.
Lyle.
Mileage (Part Two)
Posted: Sat 2 May, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Reviews(ish), Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »So, yesterday – all told it involved 310 miles, 8 hours of driving, and one exceptionally knackered Lyle.
The drive down to Wokingham from home was OK, not too painful (even on the M25, which was slow but not abysmal) and I did it in 2.5 hours all told. Drop off Hound at her place of residence for the next week, have some lunch, and it’s half three. So I decide I’ll head over to Greenwich and the O2.
It’s at that point that I realise I haven’t got the normal sat-nav in the car. I had it the day before for the drive to Welwyn Garden City, then Herself used it in the evening, and I’d forgotten to make sure I got it back. Oh bollocks.
So instead I had to trust the POS sat-nav thing on my phone – a heap of crap called Wayfinder. And Jesus H Christ on a warped pine crutch, it really is a piece of shit. First of all it took no less than fifteen minutes to find where the fuck it was – although that may be a fault of the phone’s GPS rather than Wayfinder. However, the fact that it was consistently 400 ft out was entirely the fault of Wayfinder, and meant that it had a nasty habit of saying “Oh, you wanted to turn left back there“. Now I’m sure that’s fine out in the arse of beyond where 400 ft doesn’t mean a thing – but in central London, 400 ft is the equivalent of about six roads.
Wayfinder also wanted me to go some deeply surreal routes. My original idea had been to go southbound (anticlockwise) round the M25 from the M4, get to the junction for (probably) the A2, and belt straight up to Greenwich – probably the longer and (in theory) quicker route. Only (as usual for the M25 on a Friday) it was jammed solid for about six junctions. Fuck that, thinketh I. (And bear in mind here, Wayfinder was trying to tell me to go northbound on the M25 instead)
So – straight along the M4, into the city, through. Only that was buggered too. (And Wayfinder kept planning on taking me back north of the river for some fuckforsaken reason)
So – round the infamous South Circular Road. I know a bit of it, but not all of it, so I might have to rely on satnav a bit. And there laid my biggest mistake of all. Because Wayfinder didn’t want me to take the simple South Circular (A205) route round to the A2. It wanted to take me the tourist way (and also possibly to get up to the M40 and go through from there). Every fucking time. And be 400 ft out in its estimations. All the fucking way round.
Eventually I gave up on it, once it tried taking me through Elephant and Castle.
From there, and pretty epically lost – I knew very roughly where I was, where I needed to be, and roughly the roads I needed to take – I finally found myself, got back on the road I wanted, and once I’d done that it was a 30 minute run through to the O2 itself. I should have been able to do the route in 90 minutes, give or take – maybe 2 hours in shitty rush-hour traffic.
Instead, because of the cuntbrick piece of shit satnav software, it took me three and a half bollocking hours to do fifty miles. Yeah, go on and laugh, fuckers.
By contrast, the drive home was two hours door-to-door, and belted past. We got home at 1:15.
I’ll write more about the Pink concert itself later or tomorrow – but for now let’s just say it was fan-bloody-tastic. Well impressed all round.
FC 2009
Posted: Fri 24 April, 2009 Filed under: Offensive Repetition, Sweary Leave a comment »Sweary, utterly unsafe for work, but still very funny…
Changing Passwords
Posted: Tue 13 January, 2009 Filed under: Charm School, Geeky, Sweary 2 Comments »When faced with passwords that needs to be changed on a regular basis, one thing I always seem to forget is the relevance of timing.
After all, you don’t have to change it as soon as the stupid little dialogue box comes up to tell you to change it. At that point, you’ve still got (usually) a week or two to change it before everything goes tits-up.
So I need to remember that whatever else happens, don’t change it on a bloody Friday. Because then I bugger off for the weekend, and come Monday morning I don’t have a single bloody clue what I changed the frigging thing to. It usually takes about ten attempts to remember what the hell it was. Sometimes it also depends on what my mood was like when I changed it, which can have a knock-on effect in whether the password is sweary (which results in passwords like ‘cuntflaps’) or not.(resulting in words like ‘prestidigitate’) Both of those have been passwords in the past, by the way – but they’re not the current ones. (obviously)
I did remember it in the end (for once it was a non-sweary one) but it’s something I really need to learn to remember…
Staying in Business
Posted: Mon 13 October, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Sweary 1 Comment »Sometimes I wonder how some companies stay in business at all. I’ve recently had two perfect examples of this.
1. Three months ago, I ordered something from a bunch of shysters called Urban Junkie. When it hadn’t turned up after a month, I chased them up, and on the third chase-up, finally got a response.
“I have checked your order, unfortunately the item has gone out of stock and is not due back in for a few more weeks. No payment has ben taken and we fully understand if you wish to cancel due to the delay.
Sorry for the inconvenience.”
And that’s been it. Two more months and no word at all.
So I’ve cancelled the order.
2. Back when I was using the bunch of shyster twunts known as Parasol IT (I’ve now had £1800 of tax refunds for two consecutive tax years because of Parasol’s inefficiency – that’s £150 per month for two years that they were fucking up) I also got a stakeholder pension through one of their related companies.
Since leaving Parasol, I’ve told Parasol Financials on no less than four occasions that I’ve left Parasol, and need the details of the pension so I can keep on paying in to it. Last week they called, denied having ever heard from me about leaving Parasol (although that soon changed once I forwarded them copies of the emails, and replies to them) and getting quite snotty.
The snottiness changed when I then asked them to send me details, and asked what address they held for me. And (again despite repeated updates from me to them) the address was still the one in fucking Bracknell. From two years ago. Useless twats.
So yes, needless to say, I think I’ll be pulling the pension out from Parasol Financial’s control ASAP.
Really, you just have to wonder how organisations like these stay in business, don’t you?
Swearage
Posted: Sat 21 July, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, D4D™, Sweary Leave a comment »Every so often, I realise that my swearing is becoming too commonplace, and it’s losing any useful impact or utility. It’s not a process I’m conscious of in general, but I do always suddenly get to a point where I think “that’s too much, it’s getting boring now.”
So I’m now going to cut it right back down again – I was going to cut it out completely, but there’s a big project at work that’s due for a deadline of the end of August, so there’s no chance of it being a complete cut-out.
But the plan is that I’ll be cutting it right back down from now, but definitely for the entire of August. It also means that I get to play (yet again) with new swear-words to replace the old standards, and that is almost as much fun in its own right.
Updating
Posted: Fri 20 July, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Geeky, Sweary 7 Comments »One thing I do very irregularly is update software. A case in point is iTunes. Or “Fucking iTunes”, as it’s known in this house.
Now fair enough, I get why a program can’t be running while it upgrades itself. That’s fine. It makes sense.
But in the name of all that’s fucking holy, why the blue blazing shit does iTunes need to shut down Fucking Microsoft Outlook while it upgrades?!? I could understand (ish) restarting a web browser. But email? (And yes, before any techie spod gets a hold on this one, I know poxy Outlook uses the IE rendering engine for HTML emails – well , until Outlook’07, anyway – but that’s a rant for another day. Oh yes.)
Even more annoying, if I tell it to “Ignore” the problem with Outlook, it goes back, tries again – and still insists that Outlook gets shut down. Apple has the funniest fucking perspective on the word “Ignore”, doesn’t it?
And then, not content with fucking about with poxy bloody email, once the upgrade is over and done with, it tells me it also needs to restart the entire fucking PC. Why?!?
And when all’s said and done, what sits there in the fucking system tray again? Oh yes, it’s Quicktime. Which I drop from the system tray every bastard time, because it’s a system-hungry piece of shit that doesn’t pissing bastard well need to be running every time I start the PC. If I want a fucking Quicktime movie to play, I’ll wait the extra ten bloody seconds for the fucking thing to start. That’s fine. I don’t care. But stop running in my fucking system tray all the time, you bastard piece of crap.
And then people reckon I should buy an iPod as well. Fucking Apple. I wouldn’t touch their hardware with a syphilitic leper’s dick.
Two Titled
Posted: Sat 30 June, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve mentioned before that I’m quite a fan of the books by Richard Morgan – I’ve read (and re-read) all of his stuff so far: Altered Carbon, Woken Furies, Broken Angels, and Market Forces.
So I was fairly high on the purchase list for the new novel, Black Man, and read it when I received it.
Between ordering Black Man a while back, and the time it (finally) got delivered, I noticed that there was another Richard Morgan novel coming out – also in hardback, but two months later than Black Man. This one was called ‘Thirteen’ (Or ‘Th1rte3n’, if you believe the typography) so, like the fanboy I so obviously am, I ordered that too. Great, two novels in a short time – that explains the delay in releasing Black Man, and how long it’s taken the new stuff to come out.
I received ‘Thirteen’ (sorry, I just can’t be arsed with the typographical nancing about) yesterday. And it turns out it’s just ‘Black Man’ with a different title and cover.
To me that’s a pretty scummy way to do things. I don’t know if it’s been decided that ‘Black Man’ is a title that won’t sell, or something. But I would have thought it better to have some form of notification that it was actually a rebranded title, rather than alienating Morgan’s readers, and making the book purchasers feel like shit-for-brains arsehats who’ve been taken for a ride and bought two copies of the same fucking book.
Mood Change
Posted: Wed 18 April, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, MOTB, Sweary 2 Comments »While MOTB may now be officially over, I notice that still there is nothing that changes my mood from OK (if “Oh God it’s early”) to Growl quicker than some stupid little smeghead cunt cycling up behind me on the path and ringing their bell in order to make me get out of the way.
In fact, it’s like flipping a switch. One little *ting* from that bell and Bastard returns, slowing down, making sure that the shit-for-brains arsewipe fucker behind me can’t get past.
In the end I didn’t quite slow down enough for them to fall off their bike, but they had to go off the path and onto the road in order to get past. And didn’t quite dare yell anything at me, as they’d been in the wrong anyway. (not that that appears to matter to Cambridge cyclists most of the time)
Really quite satisfying.
Mondeo Man.
Posted: Wed 21 March, 2007 Filed under: Getting Organised, Sweary, Travel 2 Comments »The car? Oh, that’s fine. The drive both to and from Devon was fine, and there’ve been no problems with it at all.
Well – that’s not strictly true, but the two problems we did have were so minor, it’s hardly worth commenting on. But all the same, I will…
First, the power-socket (AKA Cigarette lighter, except neither of us smokes, so it’s just a power socket) in the centre console was knackered, and I didn’t realise. Obviously it’s one of those things, and the car’s three years old, so hey ho. But we didn’t realise until the TomTom satnav started bleating that its battery was low, once we’d done a six hour drive with it plugged in to the power socket. Oops.
Still, it’s been fixed now (a quick visit to the local Ford dealership, and one fuse later, all sorted) so that should be fine. That little bit may eventually need replacing, if it keeps on coming adrift (it was loose as well as no power going to it) but for now it should be fine. Even better, it somehow didn’t cost me anything – not quite sure how that worked out, but hey ho, I won’t complain.
Second, well, we got stuck on a single-track road in Devon, and I had to reverse the car back down to the nearest passing place. (the other driver was in a Ford Ka, and obviously far more local, but wasn’t going to move one fucking jot) Unused to the length of the car, I got it wrong, so the nearside rear wheel arch and bumper now have a bloody great scrape along them where I interfaced the car with a wall.
I haven’t yet decided whether I’m going to bother getting it repaired. I probably should (and the brother-in-law – well, brother-in-semi-law – is going to recommend it, I know) but it’s not serious, and I can’t be chuffed. Besides, it was always going to happen at some point, so *shrug*, I dunno yet what I’ll do. It’s not serious, and its not affecting anything, so pah.
But little things like that aside, it’s proving (so far) to be a good buy. And we’ve already put nearly 1,000 miles on the poor bloody thing.
Cunts (Missing in Action 4)
Posted: Wed 7 March, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Sweary 6 Comments »Well, it’s established – Ticketmaster are utter, utter cunts.
Thank you for your email.
The tickets you have received are part of an event that is general admission and as such the event has a limited capacity, which is set by Health and Safety. Ticketmaster is unable to issue duplicate tickets for this event as it may cause the event to go over capacity, as we are unable to cancel the original tickets, therefore they can still be used.
This is a decision that is made by the individual venue and Ticketmaster as an agent has to adhere to this. If the venue goes over capacity, the venue could lose its license, which could jeopardise all future events, due to this we cannot re-issue your tickets.
Ticketmaster’s policy is that once a booking has been confirmed, it cannot be exchanged or refunded unless the event is cancelled. So unfortunately we cannot issue you with a refund of the cost of the tickets. Due to these reasons i have passed on a request to our customer service department to contact Secure Mail to investigate this situation. In doing this we will try and make a claim against Secure Mail to refund your booking.
Our representative from customer services will contact you as soon as possible regarding the outcome of the investigation.
I am sorry i cannot help you any further.
So – you ordered tickets, we sent them to the wrong address, where they were signed for by someone obviously not you. That’s your fault. You should’ve known that we’d use a courier ‘service’ (I use that term as loosely as possible) instead of using recorded delivery royal mail like we did for the Massive Attack tickets (which, funny enough, came straight to me, no problem at all) and gone back to your old address for the day when we were going to deliver them.
A refund? Fuck off. It’s all your fault.
And I suppose it is. After all, I ordered using Ticketmaster. My mistake. But believe me, I’ll never make the same mistake again, you cunts.
Missing in Action
Posted: Sat 3 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Music, Sweary Leave a comment »You know, I’m beginning to think I’m cursed when it comes to gigs – particularly at Brixton Academy.
Last time I was supposed to go, to see Massive Attack, it snowed, and I didn’t go.
This time, I’m supposed to be going to see Nine Inch Nails next Wednesday, only I haven’t yet received the ticket from cunty fucking Ticketmaster. Yeah, sure, I’ve moved since I ordered the tickets, but I’ve also registered that change of address with the useless bastards, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Yesterday it took me half an hour just to get to, fill in, and send the form to ask where my tickets are. I still haven’t heard back. Useless fuckers. The site has been ‘improved’ and now lags to chuff, blows up the browser, and is generally now just as broken as Ticketmaster’s ‘service’ in the first place. So I suppose that at least it’s representative…
So far, the odds of me seeing NIN are emphatically not good. I stand to be signally unimpressed…
Health Check
Posted: Fri 23 February, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Health, House Purchase, Sweary Leave a comment »One of the real pains (and one I haven’t yet written about on D4D™ – believe me, it’s coming) with our house-buying process at the moment has been that as part of the entire mortgage malarkey, we’ve both been advised to get some proper life-insurance, that’d cover the whole amount of the mortgage should one of us suddenly develop a ‘critical’ illness or drop dead. Of course, that also means having to deal with another load of financial scumbags – insurers.
Back in Jan 2005, I got one lot of cheap-ass life insurance on Herself’s insistence (in fairness, she got some too) which became not-such-cheap-ass insurance when the insurance scumbag underwriters at Norwich Poxybollocks Union decided I was overweight, and whacked an extra amount on my premium. Not a lot, to be honest, but still rather more than the initial quotation had been. Bastards.
Since then, I’ve lost a fair amount of weight, although (as I’ve commented many times) I’m still never going to be 12-15stone without going through at least one limb amputation. That’s a fact of life. I’m not unfit – OK, I’m not fit either, but there we go – and… oh, chuff it, you all know the score by now.
Anyway, with the mortgage application and insurance guff, the scumbag insurance underwriters have – again – thrown a wobbly. And they’ve insisted that this time I don’t just pay extra, I have to have a ‘health check’ too before they might deign to take my money.
So while you’re reading this, I’m in a random doctor’s surgery, having a basic medical and healthcheck for scumbag dirtwad insurers . Whoopee Doo.
Fuuuuck
Posted: Mon 19 February, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, House Purchase, Sweary 3 Comments »Well, we got the mortgage offer through this weekend, so that’s the first big hurdle out of the way, at least.
But Jesus, when you look at the details, it’s fucking offensive.
For every pound you borrow, you pay back £2.30
Fuuuuuck. That takes the piss. How does anyone get away with that?
Basically, for a £200,000 mortgage, we get to pay back the princely sum of £440,000. If nothing else, it reinforces my opinion that the financial industry are, in fact, an utter bunch of cunts.
L-Plate
Posted: Mon 12 February, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Sweary Leave a comment »Related to the post on Saturday about that box junction in Cambridge:
Today, I saw a learner-driver, in the instructor’s car, do exactly the same thing. Just stopped, in the path of an oncoming bus.
That might be a long-term fix to the problem : either
- let all the shit instructors get killed by their pupils
or - teach the pupils properly in the first fucking place
I think that’d do it. Eventually.
Reserved Words
Posted: Thu 25 January, 2007 Filed under: Geeky, Own Business, Sweary 5 Comments »On occasion, I really hate SQL. (This is a geeky post. Don’t bother reading on if you’ve no interest in databases or PHP/SQL)
Read the rest of this entry »
Jesus Loves You
Posted: Mon 22 January, 2007 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Sweary Leave a comment »I can’t help but be deeply happy when I see that I’m number one on Google for the phrase
I know, it’s SO childish, but when I saw that someone had done a search on it and come to D4D™, I just had to find out where I came on the results…
Wheels
Posted: Mon 2 October, 2006 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »Following today’s journey, I’m now fully convinced that everyone who uses a small wheeled suitcase should be summarily executed.
I don’t mind (as much) with the big “two weeks in Spain” type wheeled suitcases, but the littler ones that seem to be deemed “carry-on” are just a pain in the arse. Or ankles. People just seem to drag them without any thought or consideration, and definitely don’t realise that they’re suddenly three times as long as they normally are, and thus can’t squeeze through the same gaps in the crowd.
I find now that if someone does hit me with their poxy little pull-along toy, a hefty kick seems to get the message across. (Kicking the pull-along, not the person, I should point out) But all the same, summary execution seems to be a better bet. After all, if it’s only that size, the lazy fuckers can carry the poxy things. I’m carrying a week’s worth of clothing etc. in a holdall (of which more later, I suspect) and have no problem. In fact, I suspect that half the problem with these pull-along things is that actually the solid handle, base, and wheels actually make the things so heavy that it is hard to carry them. Whereas a backpack, or simple carry-on satchel type thing would be fine.
Wanker
Posted: Sun 17 September, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Green, Sweary, Thinking About..., Thoughts 3 Comments »I wrote about this fucking idiot before. A man “addicted” to branded clothes, he’s now going to burn all his branded possessions, and then write a book about his experiences of trying to live brand-free.
What an utter, utter cunt.
There are plenty of ways that this tosser could use to get rid of these items instead of burning them. He could give them away to charty shops. He could sell them off to one of the companies that re-sell second-hand clothes, particularly those with designer labels. Hell, he could just go and shove them all in a clothing recycling bin.
But no, this fucker has to make a show of it, so he’s going to burn them. Not content with being a shallow-minded cunt in the first place, he’s now tagged himself as an egotistical self-centred cunt who’s still shallow-minded as well.
Tosser.
Bureaucracy
Posted: Sat 16 September, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »Because of the work I’ll be doing in Cambridge, and the fact I’m going to be there from Monday-Friday for at least the next three to six months, I was looking at joining the library in Cambridge, rather than lugging books around all the time. Saves weight, time, and money. So I check out the page on the local authority’s website about the requirements for joining the library. OK, groovy.
You can join the library at any age if you:
- are a permanent resident of Cambridgeshire
- work or study in Cambridgeshire
- are visiting Cambridgeshire
Great, I’ll be working there, so that’s cool – and I fill in the online form to get it sorted before I get up there. Blah blah, Section Two “For those not living permanently in Cambridgeshire” – so is this address the same as my permanent one, or for where I’ll be staying? Not much point being the latter, as it’s only a B&B…
Get a response back from the library service…
Dear [Lyle]
Thank you for your application to join Cambridgeshire Libraries
I regret to inform you that we cannot process your request owing to the fact that you are not resident in Cambridgeshire or one of our adjoining counties
I refer you to our web page “can anyone join the library?”
No shit, that’s why I filled in the fucking section called “for those not living permanently in Cambridgeshire”.
Needless to say, I’ve sent back a snotty reply explaining this. Should be fun to see the response…
Carriers
Posted: Mon 7 August, 2006 Filed under: Green, Sweary, Thoughts 6 Comments »First of all, it’d help if when you do the (supposedly greener, as you’re not driving to the supermarket, and they can do multiple deliveries on one run) shopping online, they don’t deliver everything in fucking plastic bags. Particularly when you end up with so many bags with just one bloody item in them. That’d help a lot more.
And why not “just” make bags that actually, you know, biodegrade? Rather than lasting for the next 150 years in a sodding landfill? Waitrose had them at least fifteen years ago, and they were photodegradeable – slight flaw, as on sunny days they did have a nasty habit of breaking before you got home – but still, it was done fifteen sodding years ago.
If Tesco (and all the others) were actually bothered, instead of just paying lip service to the entire Green thing, then they’d buy in degradeable plastic bags, or do a far better job of promoting their “bag for life” scheme. (which seems to have done a bit of a disappearing act of late) But as it is, well, it’s just a buzzword, a theme for the moment, and so long as they’re seen to be paying lip service to it, and so long as it doesn’t actually cost them a fucking penny, then they’ll be all for this kind of bullshit PR stunt…
Superman Ain’t Returning
Posted: Tue 1 August, 2006 Filed under: Reviews(ish), Sweary Leave a comment »So I suppose it’s only fair to give a slightly more balanced review than I did yesterday of Superman Returns.
First of all, it’s awesomely, glacially, earth-shatteringly slow. Which is never a good thing in a comic-book adaptation. We’re talking 145 minutes – two and a half hours – and my god, does it feel every minute of that. We weren’t the only ones to be saying “Thank christ that’s over” when we eventually stumbled to the end.
Some spoilers and/or discussion follow, so if you don’t want to know, don’t click for more… Read the rest of this entry »
iTunes
Posted: Sun 30 July, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, General, Sweary, Weirdness 2 Comments »With the new PC, I’ve also installed iTunes to deal with a lot of the music. This has turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword.
For a lot of things, iTunes is great – burning CDs, building playlists, buying music downloads – all great. No problem with that at all.
However, it has fallen down big-style on one particular area. It just won’t read in all the files I’ve got. Well, I say that – it reads the files, but in a good 50% of the cases, it doesn’t get the relevant information. Now, Real Player has no problem with the files, and has always been able to keep track of who’s done them, which album, so forth, so fifth. But oh no, not iTunes. It won’t take into account the file structure ( i.e. they’re all kept in a file structure that goes /music/[Artist]/[Album]/[Tracks] )
So in order to make use of iTunes in general, I’m supposed to go through and re-identify about 6,000 files, enter in all the tag information – all of which is in the file structure, and it even shows in iTunes with the file structure identified. It’s just the information that’s fucked. Yet Real Player has got it all with no problem.
Have I missed something? Or am I just going to have to spend time going through the entire fucking file structure, editing all the ID3 tags for all the music that iTunes insists hasn’t got the right information?
Dumped
Posted: Mon 24 July, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Getting Organised, Sweary 2 Comments »Well, yesterday I finally dumped the two Shuttle boxes I bought. I got the first one a long time back, in October, and it was a cunt. Never worked, and we finally established that the motherboard was fucked. Nothing worked on it, couldn’t install an OS, and ended up testing the memory, the hard drive, the processor, the optical drive, everything. No joy.
Shuttle wouldn’t replace it, and nor would the supplier, MicroDirect – despite repeated letters to both, they both just put their hands in the air, shrugged, said “Not our problem, mate”, and because it was a self-build system, they pretty much insisted it must be my fault, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Smug cunts.
Anyway, glutton for punishment, I ordered a replacement Shuttle box, this time from Dabs. Some people have said they’re useless fuckers, but when it comes to ordering stuff from them, I’d have to say that they’ve been OK with me. Somehow, I managed to get another box that didn’t work, and had another motherboard problem. All the components, and some new ones, got tested, and no fucking joy.
So I gave up, and ended up ordering a PC from Dell, which is an absolutely storming bit of kit. And I’ve been able to add in pretty much all the components I bought for the Shuttle boxes, with the exception of the processors – Dell use intel, the shuttles were AMD 64-bit processors.
Despite repeated contacts with Shuttle, they’ve absolutely refused to acknowledge any problems with their boxes, even on evidence of everything I’ve tested.
I’ve spent about £600 on the boxes all told, and there’s fuck-all I’m going to get back for them. So now the two boxes have gone to the dump, and I’ve just had to write the loss off. However, what it does also mean is that I would never recommend a Shuttle box to anyone. Maybe – just maybe – if you can buy a system that’s pre-built, and sold as a unit, then OK. But a DIY kit? Don’t touch Shuttle with a shitty stick. In my experience, their products are crap – beautiful, a great idea , but ultimately crap – and their customer service is worse – well, if something non-existent can be deemed to be worse than crap.
And am I fucked off about throwing £600 of stuff on the local dump? You bet your arse I am – but sometimes even I just give up the fight, because I know it’s one I will never win, and in fact never even get a draw on. In this case, it’s just not worth fighting any more. Even when that leaves me almost as pissed off as the battle did in the first place.
Stickup
Posted: Mon 3 July, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, General, Sweary, Thoughts 1 Comment »With the van that’s been parked outside our office for the last hour, blocking half the road, I’ve gone back to wanting to make up some stickers – with hyper-strong adhesive – that I can slap onto people’s windscreens, printed (on the sticky side, so they can see it when they sit in the car) with the phrase
“Thanks for parking like a cunt”
in very large bold print.
I know, I’ve proposed it before, but the desire is getting stronger and stronger, the more I work in this office and see just how cuntish these drivers are.
Mind you, in twunt-boy’s case, I’d also love to see some grumpy trucker (and that’s not rhyming slang) just barge past, and scrape all down the side of the van. Now that would be funny as fuck.
“Royal” Visitations
Posted: Wed 22 March, 2006 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts 2 Comments »Yesterday, Wokingham had a visit from the Countess of Wessex, or “Sophie thingy” as she’s known. One of the more useless royals, along with her husband.
Anyway, in order to “protect” her from the “crowds” (To whit, no-one. Not a fucking one. No-one cared, or was likely to. And it was only the local Lions she was visiting anyway – hey, talk about high-powered. *cough*) the entourage consisted of :
- One Chauffer-driven Audi A6
- Two Close-Protection Bunch Range Rovers with two plods in each
- Five plods on motorbikes and
- another six all propping up the walls of the town hall
All for absolutely sod-all. SIXTEEN bloody people to protect one minor minor royal on a day-trip to a meeting with a bunch of local Lions Club members. I believe this could be filed under “Overkill”.
How good to see my council tax money going to such good use. *cough*
Chuff
Posted: Tue 14 February, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Sweary Leave a comment »I’m so proud. Wandering through my referrer stats, I came across a google search for “Fuck My Chuff” (an elegant phrase – what a pity it didn’t come up as an entire line. Still, it will now…) so I thought “Ah, what the hell, let’s see where I come in google for that.
#1, Baby.
I’m so sad…
*Shudder*
Posted: Mon 13 February, 2006 Filed under: Sweary, Weirdness 3 Comments »McVities have introduced – sit down before reading this – new flavours for Jaffa Cakes. There’s now Lemon & Lime jaffa cakes, and blackcurrant Jaffa cakes.
In the name of all that’s holy, why? The clue is in the name – Jaffa Cakes, meant to be made so the orangey bit tastes of Jaffa oranges. That’s why they’re called Jaffa cakes. What the fuck do you call a Lemon and Lime variant? It ain’t Jaffa, that’s for sure. Maybe “Kir Cakes” for the blackcurrant ones, or “Cassis Cakes”. Only then people wouldn’t realise that they’re alternatively-flavoured Jaffa Cakes.
Oi, Mr McVitie – Get your hands off our proper Jaffa Cakes, and leave ’em alone!
Renewal
Posted: Fri 27 January, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary 1 Comment »Oh bugger. My mobile phone contract is due to expire at the end of Feb/March (can’t remember which) and last night I got the first of the calls from some scamming bunch of bastards wanting me to move to their service to change my mobile contract.
“Hi, i’m from [insert name of scamming bastards here] and I understand your mobile contract is coming to the end”
“I’m not interested, thank you.”
“We can offer you a better service, and ”
(louder)”I’m not interested, thank you.”
“it’ll cost you less than you’re currently on. We check with the”
(even louder, and speaking slowly, as the guy’s obviously borderline retarded)”I’m not interested. Thank you.”
“five main mobile companies, O2, Vodafone…”
“Not interested. Goodbye”
*click*
The twat then rang back. Realised, and fucked off.
However, I know that this is just going to be the first of many. Time to get snotty….
Sweary
Posted: Fri 20 January, 2006 Filed under: Sweary Leave a comment »I’m sure I’ve wittled on about this before, but truly quality swearage. Excellent stuff, and always makes me smile.
Two Days Later
Posted: Mon 2 January, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Sweary Leave a comment »OK, so yes, 2006 started off with everyone sending off fireworks galore. And yes, Hound was stressed by them, but not as badly as she was last year.
But – and maybe this is just a Bracknell thing – what the fuck is the reason for still having them tonight, the 2nd January. It’s forty-fucking-eight hours on from New Year, so why the shit are they still being let off?
Ticket Price
Posted: Mon 2 January, 2006 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Over the last nine months or so, I’ve commuted to work by train. The price isn’t too bad, the service is fairly regular (about every 20 minutes or so) and in general it’s quicker and easier than using a car to get to and from work.
Today, the rail ticket prices rose – supposedly by an average of 4.4 percent. Having just looked, my daily ticket has risen from £2.50 to £2.70 . Still not extortionate, (although that’s for a journey of roughly six minutes. Works out as around £12.25 per hour – be interesting if they did charge tickets by a “journey-time” rate, wouldn’t it?) but it’s closer to an 8% rise. Bastards.
Transport Secretary Alastair Darling says
“It has all got to be paid for and we’ve got to strike a balance between the amount of money that the taxpayer puts in and the amount that the fare-payer puts in as well.”
That sounds all well and good, except for one eeny-weeny problem with it. Yes, sure, strike a balance between taxpayers and fare-payers for the service. But the problem is that all the fare-payers are still also paying their bloody taxes to go to things like this. So the people who use the sodding trains get to pay twice for it. Which is, frankly, fucked.
Failure
Posted: Wed 21 December, 2005 Filed under: Charm School, Sweary 2 Comments »I tried, God knows, I tried.
M&S for a flying visit to grab a sandwich and go back to work. Shouldn’t have been difficult. Except there’s fuckwits everywhere, dithering about, abandoning trolleys any old place, and generally just being a bunch of tossers. Still, I get what I want and go to the tills. The “Five items or less – Food only” queue. Ha.
When I got there, the queue had five people in front of me. It took fifteen minutes to get through those people. The two in front of me were obviously work colleagues, and kept on and on and on talking – loudly. I don’t need to know about what their office party was like last night, nor why Donna is – apparently – “mental” and “crazy”. (Although it turns out she’s “mental” and “crazy” for the disgracefully original stunts of a) photocopying her arse, and b) flashing her tits at the barman in order to get served. Barking, eh?)
Then they got to the till. By now I’ve done OK, haven’t said anything, and any obscenities and swearwords have been kept on a firmly internal basis – I’ve been good.
They start asking the till person why one tub of biscuits is discounted. She doesn’t know. Frankly, no-one cares. “Oh, it’s just that if any more of them were discounted, I could’ve bought them all and taken them to the office, because the lads there will be able to eat them before they get past the sell-by date, no problem. So, is there any chance you’ve got any more anywhere? Because I’m sure I can take them to the office and there’ll be people there that’ll eat them.” Till person doesn’t care, and isn’t going to fucking look. Blood pressure is rising.
“Oh look Tracey, you’ve only gone and got me the wrong crisps. I know you’ve scanned them already, but can you go and get me the right crisps? I don’t like those ones. You don’t mind, do you love? (at the till person) She’ll only be a minute. And while you’re there, Tracey, can you have a look at those biscuits, see if there’s any more on offer? Because then we can take them back to the office, and the lads there’ll eat them”
It’s too much, I’m afraid…
For fuck’s sake! No one cares about the biscuits. No-one cares about the crisps. You’re obviously too fucking thick to read the fucking label yourself. You’ve been in the sodding queue for at least ten bloody minutes, and you didn’t notice. There’s people behind you who want to just get their fucking lunch, and go back to work.
Now would you please shut up, pay your money, and fuck off?
They did.
Baggage
Posted: Mon 5 December, 2005 Filed under: Charm School, Sweary 4 Comments »Shopping in a very busy Waitrose today, I was walking down one of the aisles when I got whacked in the face by a handbag. No thought at all, she’d just flung her bag over her shoulder while not paying any attention to anyone around her.
The icing on the cake though, was that having been smacked in the gob by a fairly fast and chunky dollop of Gucci Leather – and if I didn’t wear glasses I’d have had the fucking badge/clasp/fastener/whatever-the-fuck-it-is in my eye – she tutted at me, as if it were my fault.
It’s at roughly that point when all niceties and tact take the day off.
“Oh, excuse me, was I supposed to apologise for getting in the way of your fucking handbag? Did I cause you a problem by being as inconsiderate as to obstruct your handbag’s path with my fucking face?”
Pavement Parking
Posted: Tue 15 November, 2005 Filed under: Charm School, Sweary 3 Comments »Last night, I was walking home, and the path I was taking was blocked by some numpty who’d decided to park on it. There was maybe two feet of room to go through. Being rather more than two foot wide, I went through it.
*crack* went moronicus’s wing-mirror. Not broken, just bent back (in the way it should do) against the car’s window.
Driver : [getting out of car] Oi! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?
Moi : Walking home. Only some twat’s decided that the path is a driveway.
Driver : Well you could’ve walked round the car.
Moi: Onto an unlit main road? At night? Wearing all black? Don’t be a fuckwit all your life.
At which he shut up, got back in his car, and fucked off, wheelspinning away to show how tough and macho he really was.
I wasn’t impressed.
Pedestrian Mind-Control
Posted: Tue 1 November, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts 4 Comments »Have I missed something? Are a large proportion of the population actually telepathic?
Every day I have to cross the road near my workplace, and I (generally) use the pelican crossing in order to do so. For those not in the know, this is the crossing with the “walk/don’t walk” red man/green man lighting system, that tells you when it’s safe to cross the road, because the traffic light has been set accordingly.
This system is not intelligent. It can’t – to my knowledge – detect when people are stood there waiting to cross. In order to tell it, you have to press the button, at which point a light on the box goes on, effectively the crossing saying “Ok, I know people are here, so I’ll get working on changing the lights”. It’s not difficult.
Every day, there’s at least one person just standing waiting for the lights to change. It’s not always the same person, but it’s always the same scenario – they’re the only person at the crossing. Now, I get to the crossing and I admit, I tend to make an assumption. I shouldn’t, but I do. I assume that the person has at least one brain-cell of their own, and has pressed the fucking button. But no – they seem to be assured of their own telepathic abilities, and think that the crossing will just know that they’re there and waiting. Occasionally common sense will suddenly strike them, they’ll look at the control box, and then press the button – even more occasionally looking sheepish at being such a twat.
More often, though, it’s down to someone else – usually me, in the end, when I’ve realised that my assumption has again been proved wrong. So they’ve waited – and still someone else has had to activate the crossing. Maybe they’ve all got servants, and are used to not having to do anything. I don’t know. But it’s certainly bloody annoying…
Corollary : By the way, the button only needs pushing once. To the fuckwits who stand there continually pushing the sodding button – it doesn’t make it work any quicker. It doesn’t think “Ooh, there’s lots of people pushing me, I’d best do it quicker”. So just press the bastard thing ’til the light goes on, then fucking well leave it alone!
Trick or Tr-bzzzzzzzzzt
Posted: Mon 31 October, 2005 Filed under: Animals, Sweary, Thoughts 3 Comments »Ah joy, for tonight is
- All Hallows Eve, when darling little munchkins wander the streets done up in fancy dress, knocking on people’s door to chorus the jolly inhabitants with the traditional cry of “Trick or Treat!”
- bloody Halloween, when snot-gobbling little chavvy tosspots stalk the streets done up in cheap tat masquerading as fancy dress, bashing on doors to yell “Trick or Treat” when people open them, in the method known to all and sundry since the late 80s when ET made the fucking festival popular across the Atlantic
- Hallowe’en, when all (in)decent witches and pagans go out and sacrifice goat/child/dog to the gods of all that is unholy
I tend to be of the attitude that b) is the way to go. It’s not enough that Hound is currently stressed by fuckwit arseholes setting off fireworks at all hours of the day/evening/night, and is currently making use of vet-prescribed sedatives. No, we’ve now got to have the fucking doorbell going off to stress her out even more, closely followed by shit-for-brains hellspawn in sheets demanding sweets. Well, bollocks to them.
I’m considering linking the doorbell to the mains for the night. That should be an ample Trick to see the little sods off crying into their goody bags…
One step forward, two steps back
Posted: Mon 31 October, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary, Thoughts 1 Comment »Recently, my bank‘s online banking section finally took a turn for the better, and made use of a lot of accessibility and usability recommendations. Halle-fucking-lujah, I hear you cry – about time one of ’em did.
Last Friday I upgraded my installation of Firefox up to the latest 1.5 beta release, which in many ways is utterly stonking, and great to use.
Today I went to the online banking and got back the same message I used to get…
The Internet browser you are using is not supported by Digital Banking. Use the link below to see the complete list of browsers we support.
- Microsoft® Internet Explorer version 5 and 6
- Netscapeâ„¢ Navigatorâ„¢ version 7.1 and up
- Mozilla 1.5 and up
- AOL 8.0 and up (AOL subscribers only)
- Firefox 1.0
For fuck’s sake – so it’ll work on 1.0, but not on 1.5? Useless bastards…
Flights
Posted: Thu 20 October, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »After last night’s flight, I found myself wondering – yet again – what it is that makes people completely ignore the booking regulations, and carry on two (or, in a couple of cases, three or four) bags as hand-luggage? The booking confirmations etc. clearly say
“Baggage allowances: Hand baggage – 1 piece that should not exceed 115cm (sum of length, width and height), maximum weight 7kg, plus 1 laptop. Hold baggage – maximum 2 pieces, total weight of pieces must not exceed 20kg, excess baggage will be charged at £5/€7.5/$9 per kilo.”
It’s not rocket-science. But a good 80% of the travellers last night had got at least two bits of hand luggage, and so the entire plane was jammed rigid with the stuff, and the fucking twunts were walking up and down trying to find a space for their stuff. Not that they remembered where they’d finally managed to put it, so when we landed they were still trying to walk up and down, and remember where they’d put their super-essential can’t-go-in-the-fucking-hold piece of tat, forcing their way past the people who were standing waiting to get out.
And that’s another thing – what’s the bloody hurry? As soon as the door opens, everyone’s standing, waiting to get out, getting stressed, and they’re not going to get there any faster. In fact it always amuses me to see these twats who’ve been so “I’m so important, I’ve got to get off the plane, I’m an a hurry” then still waiting at the luggage collection when I get there – and yes, they’re getting even more stressed. Which turns to apoplexy when – as last night – I can stroll up ten minutes after they got there, just as the bags start rolling out, pick mine up within the first five bits (there’s an advantage to a bright yellow Cat® holdall instead of the anonymous black roll-along thing that seems to be de rigeur among the business execs) and wander through to departures while they’re still waiting for their stuff, and/or deciding which one of the ubiquitous roll-alongs is actually theirs. Comedy in the making.
Fuckers
Posted: Wed 12 October, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Travel 1 Comment »I was supposed to be going to see Alabama 3 at the London Astoria last night. I’d got the ticket, and was looking forward to it.
Then I got to the ticket office.
“You do realise we’re not running any trains from London after 9pm tonight, don’t you?”
“No, no-one’s mentioned that, even on trainline.com, or on your *cough* helpful notice board”
“Yeah, no trains tonight – there’s some maintenance work we need to do, so there’s no trains”
Fucking great.
I did try finding out whether trains would still run from Paddington to Reading, where I could then get one back to Bracknell, but once the woman in the ticket office tried telling me I’d need to go via Guildford, and might get back to Bracknell by 1.30 if I was lucky, I just though Bollocks to it.
So – another concert missed. I’m beginning to wonder if this year is cursed for gigs. Better not be, as we’re seeing Faithless at Brixton Academy at the end of November…
Arses
Posted: Fri 23 September, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s going to be one of those days today. The ineffable tossers at TicketMaster sent out an email today containing an offer that – for once – was actually going to be of use to me, as it involved tickets for a new London show at half price. Perfect for Mother’s birthday in late November, in fact.
So I went to order them, typed in the password that was on the page they gave me, and an error message popped up. “That password doesn’t exist on our system”, sayeth the message. “Oh bugger”, thoughteth I, “must’ve typed it wrong”. But no – repeated tried later, it’s still knackered.
I finally got hold of ticketmaster on the phone, to be confronted with what can only be described as an idiot. “You must have an offer code, or I can’t enter it”. “There isn’t one on the email ticketmaster sent out, nor on the web-page”. “There must be – I can’t enter the offer without the code”. So forth, so fifth. Yes, another prize twunt-monkey employed by Twuntmaster.
Eventually, a supervisor comes on the line. “Yeah, the password was entered wrongly. We’re sorting it out now.”
And lo, job done – but surely it’s better to let the front-line frigmonkeys know that there’s a problem, rather than ending up with pissed-off customers, and complaints?
Mickey D’s
Posted: Fri 23 September, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary, Thoughts 2 Comments »This one’s been brewing since last weekend – you have been warned!
Currently, there’s an advert on TV for McDonalds, telling everyone about their “great” new toasted deli sandwiches, “freshly prepared on the premises”. (In fact, it says it on the website too – “Did you know that our Deli sandwiches are freshly made on the spot?“) OK, all fair and good.
On the weekend, on our way down to Portsmouth/ Waterlooville, we ended up stopping at a McDonalds for the first time in ages. Now, Herself is vegetarian, which kind of limits the choices in a burger place, but all the same you don’t expect to be greeted with the response “Sorry, we don’t do veggie burgers any more, we only do these “Grilled Veggie Melt” sandwiches. Which, frankly, sucks – if you’re going to something like fucking McDonalds, you’re pretty likely to want a fucking burger, not some grilled sandwich with houmous, pitta bread, and chargrilled vegetables. It’s not rocket science, but apparently McDonalds (advised by those pious holier-than-thou cocksucker in the Vegetarian Society) have decided that vegetarians don’t want burgers, they want these godforsaken concoctions loaded with bland cheese and – having now tried one – no fucking taste whatsoever.
The secondary factor is that, for reasons known only to Herself, she doesn’t like courgette. Fair enough. These pox-arsed sandwiches are – let’s not forget – “prepared fresh on the spot”, so we can just ask for one without courgettes in, can’t we? Um, no. When they say “prepared fresh on the spot”, the bullshitting lying corporate tosswhores knows as McDonalds actually mean “we get in bags of pre-mixed vegetable concoction, and thaw it out in the morning. When you order it, we put the stuff together, which is how we can get away with calling it ‘prepared on the spot'”. So you’ve a) no choice, b) no options, and c) a diagram involving a canoe, a creek, and the exact directions to the nearest paddle-store, 100km away. Cunts.
Incompetence
Posted: Tue 20 September, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »Yesterday was almost amusing on the trains into work. Over the weekend, the line between Reading and Ascot was having engineering work done on it, so the train service was replaced by buses. Hey ho, all part of the joys of train travel – but at least it now affects me far less than it used to.
Monday morning and the local news (both BBC and ITV) were reporting that buses were still replacing trains, due to engineering work. OK, that slightly chuffs my morning travel, but thankfully not too much. Get to the station, the ticket machines have been turned off, and there’s a sheet of paper across each one saying that due to engineering works there’s no trains, and for some godforsaken reason known only to the train operating twats, you can only buy tickets from the ticket office itself. No good reason, it just must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time. Or something.
However, getting in to the ticket hall itself, there’s people waiting on the platforms. Eh? So when I get to the Ticket Twunt behind his little bulletproof glass shield, I ask where we’re supposed to be getting the bus from, and why are there people on the platforms? “Don’t know what you mean, mate – trains are running fine today” Turns out that the fuckwit cunts have a) forgotten to take the paper off the machines, b) turn the ticket machines on, and c) tell anyone that the train service is back to what passes for normal.
Still, it made my travel that little bit easier, not having to get a bus instead. But Jesus Christ, it’s really not that difficult to sort out, is it?
T minus 100
Posted: Fri 16 September, 2005 Filed under: Festering Season, Sweary 1 Comment »
There are days when I really hate Diamond Geezer. Today is one of those days, and for one good reason.
Yes, he’s revealed that there are now precisely 100 days ’til the Festering Season™. I’ve already seen the fucking neon house “decorations” going up for sale, along with poxy tinsel and general Festering stuff. I despair. Now, where’s my scrooge image? (UPDATED : – ah, there he is)
Oxford
Posted: Sat 27 August, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts, Travel 5 Comments »A quiet day today with not much planned, so I ended up going over to Oxford. I haven’t been there in a while, despite growing up (well, as much as I’ve ever grown up, anyway) in the area and so on, so I figured I might as well.
It was kind of weird being back in the city, actually – a lot has changed, including the infamous Cornmarket re-paving project that ran somewhere around £4.5m over budget. Mind you, from the state of people in Oxford, I can see why the council tried to make the centre “safer” and pedestrianise it – there’s just an amazing number of fuckwits who either dither out into the road for no good reason, or the shit-for-brains cunts who walk (fucking slowly) three abreast, thus meaning faster-moving people have to go out into the road instead.
Oh, and the woman with the five kids and a double buggy, saying “I’m going to belt someone in a minute” to her mate? Got news for you, love – you’re the fucking problem, not the solution. Shift your arse, stop talking to your mate who also has a double fucking buggy, and start looking where the fuck you’re walking, you mouthy scabarse.
So, what were my feelings about the place? It was nice to go back for a quick visit – and I managed to get some new Cat boots, among other things – but Jesus, I could never live there again. Too many people, too few IQ points – kind of sad, for a place renowned for its students and colleges.
Updating
Posted: Tue 16 August, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Sweary 2 Comments »Ah, that was one (thanks, Gordon) – Windows Bloody Update.
At work I’m using Windows XP, along with all the latest updates including the dreaded SP2. It’s not too bad – and I might as well get used to it, as the new PC I’m going to be building is going to run on it too. Anyway, I did all the updates the other day, and then got nagged every ten fucking minutes to restart the computer.
I didn’t want to restart the keffing thing, as it was in the middle of doing that log analysis, and I didn’t want to have to restart that either. So I kept on saying “no, do it later” – everyone in the office could tell when I was clicking it, because the comment of “No I don’t, now fuck off!” got louder as the day wore on.
But now, thanks to Gordon and his link, I have fixed it for the future. If anyone else wants to know, do the following :
Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations.
Fuckin’ brilyunt.
Twat
Posted: Thu 11 August, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Sweary 4 Comments »There’s always at least one cunt in any party, isn’t there? You know the sort, sneering at everyone else, deciding they’re all a waste of space, and generally being a snide fuckmonkey cunt.
In my case, yesterday it was Ken and his comment.
suggest you rename site
SELF-OBSESSION FOR DUMMIES
Well, I’d suggest that either a) Ken sticks his head back up his arse, and farts, or b) that if he’s going to fucking sneer at other people, perhaps the marmoset-cocked wonder should learn some proper English (like wot I knows) and consider use of words like “I” and “your”, which make the comment at least look literate, if still somewhat fuckwitted.
Cunt.
Arse’oles
Posted: Fri 15 July, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Music, Photography, Sweary, Thoughts 7 Comments »Dear Brixton Academy,
You utter, utter bunch of cunts. I arrived at the venue last night to see Nine Inch Nails, which I’d been looking forward to since the tickets went on sale. When I got to the door, the security jobsworth motherfucker person searched me and my bag, and refused me access.
My sin? To be carrying a camera. To whit, a digital camera. Now, I realise that the ticket says “no professional cameras”, which is fair enough. And mine, while nice, is most definitely not a professional camera. But no, it turns out that – according to Brixton Academy – “professional” is the same as “digital”. If you’ve got a digital camera, you’re not coming in. If you’ve got a 35mm camera, you’re not coming in. Non-professional cameras would be non-digital, non-zoom, “use once” cameras. And that’s about it. Fucking hell, my bastard phone is listed as a professional camera under your classifications.
Oh, I did get told “you can leave it with us, and collect it at the end of the show“, but that comes listed under the “Yeah, right, pull the other one it’s got fucking bells on” scheme of things.
So, all told, that’s £40 up the swanny. I don’t know if the “no digital cameras” is the policy of the venue or the band, or if it’s just that you have utter fuckwit bastard cunts for doormen. Quite honestly I’ve no intention of finding out. Because I won’t be going back to Brixton Academy again.
You cunts.
Sincerely.
Lyle.
UPDATED : What really rankles is then seeing other people’s photos from the gig.
Multi-tasking
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts 4 Comments »Why is it that so many people are utterly shit at doing more than one thing at once?
Example : Walking out of a shop, their brain triggers on “Oh, it’s bright outside, I’d best find my sunglasses”. Slam. Stop. Right in the fucking doorway, so no-one else can get past while they ferret through their bags to find the bloody sunglasses. Outside the door is still in shade from the portico design, so they could wait 5 seconds, get out of the fucking way, and then find the sodding things, but oh no, way too much like common sense.
Example : Walking in a busy street, they hear the “dee-dee-dee deeee-deeee dee-dee-dee” of their phone telling them they’ve a text message. Slam. Stop. Got to look at the message right a-fucking-way, because it might be important, someone might’ve died, you never know. Oh no, it’s my mate wanting to know if I’m nearly there yet. Rather than walking the hundred yards to tell ’em, they’ll stand here like a lemon, blocking the path to other people, while they attempt (yet again) to master T9 predictive text.
Example : Talking on a mobile while driving can quadruple the risk of accidents – as well as being illegal, and leaving you open to a fine etc.
So – why can’t most people multitask?
Manipulation
Posted: Wed 29 June, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts 2 Comments »I’ve just had a spammish email (I forgot to click the “forget I exist, and never email me again, you fuckers” button once when I ordered from them) from Interflora today, telling me that Wednesday July 6th is “National Kissing Day”.
What a load of old bollocks. It’s just another “Day” created by Interflora/ Clintons/ Hallmark in order to sell more shit to gullible punters. Not that I’m cunical cynical or owt, but really, National Kissing Day? Do me a favour, pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
Tosspot
Posted: Fri 10 June, 2005 Filed under: Sweary 4 Comments »Oh bumnuggets. Why is it that whenever I think “Oooh, must see when that is”, it turns out to be on a weekend when I’ve got something booked already?
In this case, it’s the London Open House weekend, which I’d really wanted to go to, having missed the first two. Only it’s the same weekend as I’m supposed to be up in Newcastle seeing a friend on the Great North Run.
Fuck-nadgers.
Useful
Posted: Mon 6 June, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »Out of interest, what the blue blazing fuck kind of use is a bank that opens on Saturdays, but doesn’t have its foreign currency desk do the same? Because of course a Saturday isn’t going to be when most people go and use a bank for that kind of thing, is it?
Yes, Nat-West Bank I’m referring (in this case) to you, you heap of incompetent unhelpful supercilious fuckmonkey cunts.
So instead we used the Post Office. Much easier. And at least they’ve (on this occasion) got some kind of idea when it comes to things like customer service.
Sweary
Posted: Fri 3 June, 2005 Filed under: Sweary Leave a comment »In a truly inspired bit of sweary creativity, did you know that both cuntchops.com and bollockchops.com are still available? Unfortunately, bollockchops.co.uk has been taken, although it’s just host to a crappy ISP holding page, which is disappointing.
Oh, and arsenugget.com is still available too…
Dental
Posted: Fri 20 May, 2005 Filed under: Health, Sweary 16 Comments »Ah good, I hear you cry, another post about dentists. Trust me, it ain’t good.
I’ve just been to my final dentists appointment for the time being, and all I can constructively say at the end of it is that all dentists are cunts. No two ways about it. If they weren’t all sadistic bastards, there would be at least some movement to progress dental equipment in the same way that most other medical systems have improved over the last fourty fucking years.
But no, they still use the same dirty great sodding needle for anaesthetic, the same manky noisy bastard drills, the same little steel picks that slip into gum tissue, everything. So far as I can tell, sod all’s changed in the time I’ve been going to dentists. Ergo they’re sadistic bastards who enjoy doing this shit. Let’s face it, who in their right mind says “Yeah, when I grow up I want to be a dentist.”?
Today’s joyous visit included the epic highlight of an anaesthetic needle in my gum. Not the lip, not the cheek, the fucking gum. Right at the front. And the sod got the place wrong, so I also had anaesthetic fluid run up my sinus into my nose cavity. I can smell the fucking stuff. I can’t feel my nose at all, but I can still smell bastard anaesthetic.
The other jab went into my cheek. Fair enough. It still hurt, but it’s nowt compared to a gum-jab, I can tell you. And the best bit of that one was that it didn’t sodding work. Not a jot. I’m going to get all my normal side-effects from the anaesthetic (flu-like joint pain, and a head that feels like it’s been whacked by a sledgehammer covered in velvet) without the benefit of having it had kill any fucking pain at all.
In the end we went ahead with the second filling without pissing about with any more anaesthetic. It was far easier to do it that way, and only actually hurt when the tosser slipped with his little steel pick. Cunt.
Medical science has come ahead in leaps and bounds over the last half century. Dental science has stayed where it was. And because of that, I can only reiterate, all dentists are sadistic motherfuckers.
Fuckety Cunt.
Posted: Wed 20 April, 2005 Filed under: Resolutions, Sweary 2 Comments »Buggered it up. Only four or five minor mistakes (you can get away with up to 15, apparently) but one serious, which fucked it up, as you’re not supposed to get one of them. Arse-spoons.
So – booking it again. Chuff. Another £40 up the swannee.
Voiceovers
Posted: Mon 28 March, 2005 Filed under: General, Sweary, Thoughts 2 Comments »Recently, I’ve noticed something on a couple of TV programmes that really annoys me. On both “The Apprentice” and “Masterchef” they have commentaries and voiceovers. It’s grating on the Apprentice, but it really annoys the fuck out of me on Masterchef.
The programme’s only 30 minutes long, for shite’s sake. Yet the viewer has to put up with some bint whittling on about “Will Andy’s lobster bisque impress the chefs?” or somesuch. We’ll find out in about thirty seconds anyway, not all of us have the attention span of a cerebrally challenged goldfish. “Norman’s first course didn’t impress the judges” (as we saw FIVE FUCKING MINUTES AGO, YOU SIMPERING TWAT) “so will he have cut the mustard on the second challenge” It’s something that makes me wish “interactive” TV were more like DVDs where you can at least turn off the bastard fucking scumshit commentators.
In a half hour programme – with no ad breaks, it’s on BBC2, let’s not forget – they remind the viewers at least three times for each competitor what’s happened. It’s not spread over days on end, or even hard to follow. Instead it seems to have been made for the type of people who find Jerry Springer tough to follow. Except of course that kind of person is busy watching Jerry fucking Springer (or the simpsons, whatever), not bloody Master-sodding-Chef.
Information
Posted: Wed 23 March, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary, Thoughts 2 Comments »A while back I ordered a couple of things for Herself’s birthday next week. (For obvious reasons I’m now not going to name suppliers etc. just yet – but maybe on April 6th I will) One of the places I used was one I’d had a mediocre experience with before, but it was a busy period, so I thought “OK, I’ll see what they’re like this time”.
In fairness, the ordering process wasn’t too nightmarish, although it’s fucking annoying to go through the entire process of finding the stuff, sorting out what’s needed, clicking it into the “basket”, then checking out, signing in to my account, and the bastard basket is suddenly emptied. That’s just bad coding, and meant I had to stay logged in and go through the guff again of finding bits, sorting out quantities, and putting them in the basket. But OK, it’s a minor hassle – more about useability than corporate efficiency.
Once the order’s been confirmed, the little doubts start creeping in. I haven’t had a confirmation email. No mention at all – not a “thanks for your order”, a “you’ve ordered this, and we’ll charge you for it soon”, nothing. Now that’s seriously not good. I’ve given my credit card number, yet you haven’t said it’s been received.
Check under “my account” on the site. And lo, the order’s there, all confirmed and so on. Let the heart-rate come down a bit now.
Today, it’s arrived. No fucking email to say “we’ve dispatched it”, no call, no mention under “my account” that the status of the order has changed at all.
I won’t be using the company again. And I’ll be writing to explain why. I may even refer them to this post…
Rude Football
Posted: Mon 21 March, 2005 Filed under: Sweary 1 Comment »God, you’ve got to love Scaryduck sometimes. Today’s post about The football Double-Entendre XI is a gem, and has left a dollop of diet coke bobbling into the keyboard.
Bastard.
Da Vinci Bollocks
Posted: Tue 15 March, 2005 Filed under: Reviews(ish), Sweary, Thoughts, Weirdness 6 Comments »No, not a new recently-discovered masterpiece. Instead, the Vatican has come out with a lecture about why the Da Vinci Code is bollocks. (OK, they didn’t phrase it quite like that, but hey, artistic licence and all that)
Frankly, who cares? Anyone who’s brain-dead enough to think that The Da Vinci Code is anything other than utter shite – admittedly, page-turning shite, but utter shite all the same – doesn’t deserve to have it explained to them, they deserve to receive a tattoo on their forehead saying “Gullible Fuckwit”. Ideally written in reverse, so that it makes sense every time they look in the mirror.
The Da Vinci Code is toss. Badly-written pulp novel toss, albeit with sales figures that feature in Tom Clancy’s wet dreams. I’ve read it. It’s toss. That’s my critical opinion of it. And of Dan Brown‘s other books too. Toss. All of ’em. I’m not jealous – fair play, he’s written a pile of shit, and made millions from it. Good for him. But to start linking it with reality is the sign of nothing more than epic levels of brain injury in lots of people.
As for debunking the theories in it, or explaining where they’re wrong, well all I can say is that the Vatican really hasn’t got its collective brain round the conspiracy theory idea yet, has it? “A denial is as good as an ovation to a rumour”, and all those other bon mots. But quite honestly the more people who stand up and say “the Da Vinci Code is bollocks, and knows it”, the better. But denying it is just going to make the tinfoil-hat brigade believe all the more. I bet the bloody thing sells in its hundreds around Area 51, and at the “Kennedy didn’t really die, it was all a plot, like when they faked the moon-landings” school of bullshit, Texas.
PICS
Posted: Thu 24 February, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Sweary 2 Comments »Via Gordon, who’s banging on about PICS labels, I’ve now added one to d4d™.
PICS “was originally designed to help parents and teachers control what children access on the Internet, but it also facilitates other uses for labels, including code signing and privacy.�
As you can see here, I don’t have nudity or pictorial violence on the site, but the profanity count is through the roof. Can’t figure out why the shit I would be so high on that bastard though. Oh, um, yeah.
You can sort out your own PICS tag using The ICRA label generator. Fun for all the family.
NNnnoooooo! Rebranding Hell.
Posted: Fri 18 February, 2005 Filed under: News, Sweary 3 Comments »(via Gordon) It’s just unbelievable. Nestlé are going to repackage Smarties®. No more tube – it’s going to be a hexagonal job instead. (Easier to stack, and all that shite) No more plastic flip-off top, instead it’s going to be a cardboard tab.
And why’re they doing it? “to ensure the brand remained “fresh and interesting” to youngsters”.
Fucking twunts.
Spam Comments
Posted: Tue 18 January, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, News, Sweary 4 Comments »Since 8am today I’ve been getting attacked (again) by some weasel-prick fudgenugget tossbadger comment spammers. Yet again, it’s fucking bloody Texas Hold’em Poker and its many variants, and at last count it was something like 600 comments.
First of all, can anyone recommend a decent anti-comment-spam script to run in WordPress? All answers and ideas gratefully received.
Also, according to the BBC Gambling sites are getting hit by DDOS attacks from hackers and the like, and are complaining it’s not fair. Well, so far as I’m concerned while their brethren insist on spamming the shit out of blogs, sites, and email, then they deserve every fucking DDOS attack they get. Reap what you sow, you shitworm cockknockers.
Knackered
Posted: Sun 16 January, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »200+ miles on Friday – not too bad a journey, certainly better than last weekend’s gale-strewn nightmare.
200+ miles back on Saturday – under five hours in a fully laden High-side Sprinter van, including a break. Not far short of fucking amazing travel-time, really.
Sunday – moving stuff between garage, house, garage, tip, back from tip that has a 6′ height limit for some reason known only to local fuckwit cunty bastard councillors.
Currently collapsed and dead before moving some more stuff around the house in order to settle stuff into proper places. This domesticity thing is bloody chaos to set up – but the results will be worth it.
B&Q revisited
Posted: Fri 14 January, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Sweary 7 Comments »About two weeks ago, we ordered some items from B&Q’s website – nothing particularly special, two lengths of kitchen worktop and some doors to replace the current ones on the units. Not bank-breaking, about £250 all told.
Because I’m a twunt, it ended up being two orders – one for the doors, one for the worktops. Fair enough, that’s my fault, and I don’t have a problem with them for that part of it.
When all the stuff arrived at B&Q’s branch – all on the same day, I should point out – they decided in their infinite wisdom that the two deliveries should go out via two different carriers. Why, fuck only knows. But that’s how they decided to do it. Ah good – insanity from the start.
The deliveries arrived yesterday and today. The unit doors delivery was done by Parcelforce, and one of the most spectacularly unhelpful and braindead semi-primates known to science. He couldn’t bring both packages to the door, so I had to carry one. The one he carried (bearing in mind it’s wooden doors) was dumped right on the door jamb, and the packaging for the one I was carrying was split. “Not my problem, mate, I just deliver them. If you want to complain you’ll have to call someone. I just deliver ’em.” I think this was a pre-programmed speech, operated by use of the expression “where do I say on your little computer ‘packaging damaged, goods uninspected’?”. But I digress.
The second delivery – supposedly two 3m lengths of worktop, and an end-cap for the worktop – arrived today. Only – well – it’s one worktop. In the wrong colour. It’s also two 1000mm wall units in “cherry”, four cherry-wood doors, and a 400mm door. None of which match. None of which we ordered.
We now have to organise to get all the stuff taken away, and then re-order what we wanted. In short, the entire thing has been about as organised as elephants working in a jelly factory. Fucking farcical. I wonder if Richard Branson is the B in B&Q?
Ikea
Posted: Sun 2 January, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary 3 Comments »What is it about Ikea? I’ve been three times now, and each time I reckon that the average IQ for the entire building is about 8. I’m including my own IQ in this average – but it’s not that much of a factor, considering the sheer number of people in the place.
Personally, I think a lot of Ikea’s stuff is bloody good. It’s just that buying it and getting through the store without aid of machetes and landmines is an utter cunt. If their website were any good – fuck it, even if their website were utter shite (Oh look, it is) but included some form of e-commerce (remember that terminology?) then I’d use the bloody thing. Instead it’s a sack of crap, and doesn’t actually even include some of the products they do. Guess what? The stuff we wanted was part of that section. Fuck it, we’re off to Ikea. Oh goody.
The problem with the place is that while the concept is great, the infrastructure is nothing short of fucking shit. The staff are International, to be charitable. Perhaps if you know Esperanto then you’ve a chance of getting sorted without resorting to sign-language and pop-eyes as a communication method. As it is, it’s like a Tower of Babel – multiple languages, and some impressive linguistic abilities. If you speak Swahili, or some obscure dialect from Papua New Guinea then you’re in with a shot of being served at Ikea. Effnic minorities are well served in this.
Unfortunately, Ikea’s concept seems to stick WAY too much in the hands of the general public, and they seem to be more comfortable with being spoon-fed stuff. Even the simple concepts like “getting your items in the car” seems to be beyond most of the motherfuckers. Rather than spreading themselves along the area, and standing back near the wall so people can make their way past, they all cram to the front where the cars are, as if they can book a space like that. No, instead it just blocks the entire fucking place for everyone else.
How more murders don’t happen every day in Ikea, I just don’t know – if I had to visit regularly, or God Forbid, work there, the place would be like a charnel house within minutes.