Holmes Place
Posted: Sat 17 February, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Weirdness Leave a comment »You’d think I’d have had enough of Holmes Place over the last year – and you’d be right.
Yesterday, though, I got a call from the Wokingham gym, telling me that they’d been bought out by Virgin Active, and would I like to go for a free visit there, and take a partner with me?
Me : How blunt do you want me to be?
HP/VA Person : As blunt as you want. (Ooooh, that could’ve been a bad move…)
Me : OK then. I wouldn’t rejoin Holmes Place, regardless of who owns you. I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone, even my worst enemy. In fact, I’d go so far as to actively encourage anyone thinking of joining to not do so.
HP/VA Person : Oh.
[there followed an explanation of all the old crap about contracts, HP being unable to provide a gym at all, and threatening me with a bailiff if I didn’t pay the entire remaining sum.]
Me : So overall, I wouldn’t trust HP as far as I can throw them, nor their new owners. And in my opinion, they’re scumbags.
HP/VA Person: OK, well, thank you for being so honest in your response.
Now, I have to say, I think that she actually handled the call really well, and there was nothing nasty about the entire thing. An apology would’ve been nice, but now I’m done with them, I know it’d be too late for one anyway – and so did she.
All the same, though, you’d think they might’ve taken me off their ‘to call’ list…
Taking the Piss
Posted: Wed 14 February, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Weirdness 1 Comment »I was looking the other day at the Interflora website – as you do – and couldn’t help but check out the extortionate prices for roses etc., bearing in mind the proximity of Valentine’s Day.
Anyway, I had to laugh when I saw this particular bouquet, and particularly the price of it. One hundred red roses for £500!
So yes, that’s £5 per rose.
Some people have more money than sense…
And in the meantime, Happy Valentines Day. Or something.
Unlit
Posted: Sat 10 February, 2007 Filed under: Driving, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »Driving in to work yesterday, I was absolutely amazed by the number of idiots out there who hadn’t even turned on their headlights.
OK, this was primarily close to Cambridge, so it was around 8:30 or so in the morning. But all the same, it was pretty foggy yesterday morning, and the visibility was pretty shit. So it’s still surprising (for me, anyway) when I see other drivers – and particularly those in light-coloured cars that blend into the fog even more) without lights or foglights on. I know that I’ve written about this before – and quite recently but it still shocks/surprises/scares me when I see it happening.
Of course, the even scarier thing in Cambridge is the cyclists. Yesterday morning, not one of them had any lights on at all. Again, still cold, grey, misty/foggy, yet they all seem to believe that they’re either indestructible, or that the dozy little twadgers have some god-given right of way so that they won’t suffer any collisions or accidents.
Yes, yet again, I find myself worried by other road users. I suspect that this may become a standard mantra.
Box Junction
Posted: Sat 10 February, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 6 Comments »Just down the road from where I work, there’s a big four-way crossroads, which is invariably snarled up and jammed. There are actually two reasons for this :
- It’s been designed by an utter tosser
- People are tossers
Reason One is fairly standard – after all, it’s just a four-way crossroads with a nightmare of traffic lights.
Reason Two, though, is different, although it’s related to Reason One. Because the traffic lights screw things up, the planners/designers decided to make it ‘safer’, and covered the entire junction with yellow cross-hatch markings. It’s a box junction.
Box junctions aren’t difficult to deal with – well, unless you’re a BMW driver – and the simple rule is At signalled roundabouts you MUST NOT enter the box unless you can cross over it completely without stopping.. Not rocket science, is it?
But the reason this junction is a nightmare is because everyone ignores that concept completely, and instead buckets into the junction, try to turn, and then realise they can’t get out of the junction. And oooh, look – suddenly they’re blocking the next flow of traffic, which invariably includes a sodding big bus. Oops.
I have no idea how this can be fixed, and nor do I have any idea how you can get drivers to look ahead and figure out that there’s nowhere for them to go. Personally, I can’t see a problem with a car that detects the road markings, and if you stop on a box junction, it gives you a small electric shock. That’d soon stop it. Just call me Mr Pavlov…
Mind you, if I could come up with the answers to either of those things, I’d be a very wealthy man.
It’s fun to stay at the…
Posted: Wed 7 February, 2007 Filed under: D4D™, Weirdness 1 Comment »via Stuart ‘KitchenTable’, I just couldn’t resist this…
It’s fun to stay at the…
Clocks
Posted: Sun 4 February, 2007 Filed under: Domestic, Weirdness 3 Comments »Since moving, I’ve been sleeping a lot worse than I was in Bracknell. We had a new clock in the (en-suite) bathroom, and I knew that when I woke up, I could hear the poxy thing ticking, which then kept me awake.
Anyway, about ten days ago I finally lost the plot with the poxy thing, and moved it out of the bedroom.
We’ve replaced it with a (thankfully silent) water-powered digital clock (don’t laugh – it’s an interesting idea) and since then, I’ve slept a lot better.
I hadn’t realised just how much that ticking was keeping me awake, but it’s obvious now that it was. I’m just glad we’ve realised, and been able to change the situation. Plus it means I’ve been able to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
Bizarre
Posted: Wed 31 January, 2007 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Weirdness 6 Comments »When I moved to Attleborough, I discovered there was another blogger in the town, Mr Lionel Rarsh. Hardly a shocker, knowing there’s another loon in the same small market town. After all, I suspect there were several in Bracknell, except no-one would dare admit it. Coming from there, I mean.
Anyway, in an email today it transpires that he lives exactly three houses away from me. And in a street/road of about 30 houses, those odds are pretty fuckin’ high, it has to be said.
Bizarre indeed.