Cold callers drive me crazy
May 16, 2011
We’ve all been there. After a hard day at work we are settling down in front of the television with a glass of wine when the doorbell rings. We answer it only to find a cold caller is trying to sell us religion or a similar worthless product. We then stand by the doorway while the person regails us their wares without stopping for air so we can’t get a word in edgeways to tell them to piss off. That was until we developed a cunning plan.
When you open the door to a cold caller you have to think fast. Speaking first is the key. Instead of the usual “hello”, start with the catchy - “Are you selling anything?” If the person answers “no”, you need to be ready with the next question - “Are you from a small religious group who is trying to recruit people who can’t think for themselves?” If the answer is “no” again, you have to respond quickly again. The next question to ask is - “Are you from a political party?”. If the answer is still “no”, the last question to ask is “Are you trying to get me to change my energy supplier?”. If the answer is still no you will have to resort to the same response as if the cold caller has answered “yes” to any of the above questions - “not today”, while shutting the door into the face of the loser on the doorstep. Don’t be tempted to say “I’m really busy now”, as the cold caller will say “I’ll call back later”.
Remember, how fast you react is important. Don’t give your cold caller the upper hand and definitely don’t let them start talking. If you do, you’ll have to wait the five minutes it’ll take before they come up for air to say “No thanks” while shutting the door in their face.
Princess Bea’s toilet hat
May 4, 2011
We all love a good wedding, so it came as no surprise that most of the UK basked in Wills and Kate’s special day last week. We’re not royalists so we didn’t pay it much attention - that is until we had a look at some of the ridiculous attire that the royals were wearing on the day.
Kate looking stunning in her hand embroidered dress, but what creature had attached itself to Princess Bea’s head? And Tara Palmer Tomkinson’s whole outfit didn’t fare much better.
Internet jokers have already likened Bea’s headwear to a toilet seat; with others commenting that it looked like an octopus or a pair of antlers. There’s even a Facebook page dedicated to the hat, check it out, it’s worth a look.
Queuing for shared food
February 25, 2011
Perhaps even worse than sharing food is the experience of queueing for shared food. This activity strips the dignity of everyone involved and does a disservice to the notion that we are somehow ‘a civilisation’.
Queuing for food is like being a vulture circling a carcass, waiting for the hyenas to have their fill. You’re in a pecking order and you don’t know what scraps will remain when you get to the front of that queue. It encourages base animal behaviour and reduces us to the level of beasts.
It should also be noted that queueing for food often precedes selecting from too varied a spread, which is another hatred. A buffet is fine right up until the point where it becomes effectively impossible to have one of everything because there are too many things on offer. You are not gaining 20 foodstuffs here; you are missing out on four.
Sharing food
February 25, 2011
Maybe it’s because I’m an only child, but I don’t like sharing food. In fact, I will not share.
Sharing food affects the whole experience. It alters your priorities and changes what should be an enjoyable experience into an every-man-for-himself free-for-all. I want to know what my food is and I want to eat it how I please. I don’t want to feel like if I risk eating some salad early on, I’ll not get any chicken kebab.
If food is to be shared, it should be equally divided and plated so that everyone knows where they are. If there is any dissatisfaction, people can trade items, but these deals are negotiated and therefore ought to be mutually satisfactory.
Slightly too much food
February 25, 2011
The right amount of food is fine. Far too much food is fine. I’m not happy with not enough food, but it’s a manageable situation - you can always go and get more. The worst volume of food is ’slightly too much’.
When there’s slightly too much food, you’re more likely to convince yourself that full consumption is a possibility and the closer you get, the more you’re committed. The very last mouthful is the hardest one of all, but it’s also the one you’re least likely to leave.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the binge-eating, but there have to be limits and they have to be either attainable or totally unattainable.
Being at work after other people have left
February 22, 2011
I don’t mind people leaving work early. I just hate being there after they’ve gone.
It doesn’t matter whether they’ve left at 5pm when I’m working until 5.30pm or if they’ve walked out halfway through the day because they’ve taken half a day’s holiday, it’s the feeling that life is kicking on without you that hurts.
It’s similar to the feeling you get in a tourist seaside town on a Sunday in the middle of winter. You don’t know what’s happening, but whatever it is, it’s taking place somewhere else; somewhere very, very far away.
It’s 5.10pm and I’m at work. Nothing is happening here.
24 work minutes lost per day making cups of tea and coffee
December 27, 2010
Recent research has revealed that the average worker in the UK loses 24 minutes of work time every day, because of the amount of time spent making cups of tea and coffee. Now being a caffeine drinker myself, this comes as no surprise to me. But 24 minutes? Where did they get these figures from?
I’d say I’m an avid fan of hot drinks and I’m known to divulge in a few cups of tea or coffee a day, however, if I added up the time I spent making hand warming beverages, I’d say I spend about ten minutes a day. So if i spend only ten minutes a day, I’m sorely missing out. There must be people who spend over 40 minutes making brews or even an hour. Maybe they have to heat the water in a pan or perhaps they have to make brews for all their 30 colleagues each time they make one for themselves? Now I know how long the nation spends making cups of tea every day, I’ll make sure that the average time will rise further.
Check your brake lights after you have an MOT
December 23, 2010
It seems my month is going from bad to worse. Getting stopped by the police for driving without an operating rear driver side brake light could be put down to being unlucky, however my car had just been serviced and passed it’s MOT a week earlier.
The police let me off with a warning to replace the offending light, so I hurried off to our local motor parts centre to buy a bulb. 15p is a bargain for a bulb I thought as I unscrewed the rear light cluster. However, when I took out the offending bulb, I noticed that it only had one filament, not the two I had expected (one for the brake, one for the rear light)?
Questioning myself, I looked at the contacts inside the bulb holder and realised the wrong bulb had been fitted to my car. That’s when the penny dropped and things started to fall into place.
When I had my MOT, the friendly man at the MOT test centre called me to say I needed to have a bulb replaced, but they would do it for a small charge. I agreed. Upon checking the receipt from the garage and the MOT documentation, it clearly states they had replaced the rear driver side brake light bulb – They had replaced the bulb for the wrong type and the car had then passed the MOT – with the brake light NOT working.
What else did they not check when they did the MOT – The seatbelts? The emissions? The brake pipes? I could be driving a death trap.
I phoned the garage and asked to speak to the manager, who courteously told me that I was wrong. I told him I was right. He told me I was wrong. I told him he was a p****.
Why can’t people drive?
December 19, 2010
Is it just me or is there a disproportionate number of really bad drivers on the road at the weekend? I went Christmas shopping this week, not nice but it had to be done, and while driving to the local shopping centre, nearly had three, yes three, accidents. I’ll give you a low down on them below.
Near miss number 1
While driving in the middle lane of the motorway, a middle aged lady decided to move out of the inside lane into the side of my car. Maybe she didn’t see me, maybe it was just an honest mistake. It didn’t help my anger levels that she was speaking on the phone at the time.
Near miss number 2
While sitting in the car after just parking a nice old lady decided that she wanted to get into the same space that I was in already. She just started reversing at a snail’s pace into my bay. It must have taken a great deal of control to make the car go so slow because during this period I had the time to think - “She’ll stop in a minute when she sees me”. “She’s not stopping”. “She’s really not stopping”. “She’s going to hit my car”, “Press the horn”. “She’s still not stopping”. “Press the horn louder”. “Stop the car you stupid…”. “Thank God she has stopped”.
Near miss number 3
After braving the Christmas shoppers, another near miss was not what I needed. However, a cheery chap decided that he wanted to get into the back of my car. He didn’t actually want to get in the back of my car, he was driving far too closely to my car, however the closeness made me feel it would be easier if we stopped so I could open the back door to let him in. Mildly annoyed at how close he was made me drive more conscientiously. I made sure I was well below the speed limits as to not be caught speeding and even spent ages slowing down when approaching traffic lights. This helped it seemed, as when an opportunity to overtake ensued, the cheery chap gave me a ’special’ wave as he passed by.
Virgin Media customer complaints
December 14, 2010
Being angry comes naturally to me, so imagine my rage when I received my bill from Virgin media and they had charged me for an extra month’s TV and telephone services.
Moving house is never easy but you expect big firms like Virgin to help out with the transfer of your account. They don’t by the way, they make things more difficult. I phoned Virgin to say I was moving and told them the exact date. They said I could keep my number and everything would be sorted. They even arranged a date for the nice engineer to visit my new home (after I moved in) to install the V+ box and connect the phone line. All going swimmingly it seems.
What they failed to tell me was that you have to cancel your contract when you move house and then take out a new contract at your new address AND then pay one month in advance. So I paid my bill in Novenber at my old address and then got charged for November again at my new address, as well as December - brilliant - two months for the price of one.
I voiced my displeasure to the charming young lady at the customer services department at Virgin, and after 85 minutes (I’m not kidding, my phone has a call timer) I got her to admit they did not inform me of this so they wavered the one month upfront.
Come on Virgin, I shouldn’t have to phone you to sort this out, I was already a paying customer, you should reward loyalty, not just try to get new customers by putting a flier through my door every other day.