I am marginally offended by the latest advertising campaign from EDF, mainly due to the blatant lie that opens the advert; "At this time of the year, everything seems to fall" - a pathetic attempt to infer that energy prices are falling.
This is utter shite, since:-
My energy prices have not fallen - I am still being charged the same exhorbitant rate.
No prices fall, indeed it is common knowledge that the closer Christmas becomes, the more prices increase.
In opening their advert with this utter lie, they have somehow made me feel nothing but utter disgust towards them. This strikes me as odd since I had no intention of ever using EDF, but now have even less inclination to do so. Funny how a minor oversight in the construction of a commercial can completely alienate "potential customers". It's no surprise then, that businesses usually spend huge budgets purely on marketing, to ensure the correct message is proclaimed.
The people I work with - Episode 2
-11 09 09 - 13:17
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Odd behaviour continues in the office as company policy appears to impose a ban on all forms of common sense:-
BT Lunacy
-08 07 09 - 19:26
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I have to sit back and marvel at the IQ of the person at BT, who decided that as part of your account activation, your E-MAIL ACCOUNT PASSWORD would be sent via E-MAIL to your E-MAIL ACCOUNT.
Now call me old fashioned and colour me peachy, but, how am I supposed to login to the e-mail account to retrieve the password, if the very password I require has been sent by e-mail to the account that I can't yet log into because I need the password?
Cue 27 mins on the phone to the BT Helpdesk...
The people I work with
-15 06 09 - 15:50
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I was going to launch into a full rant, but then I decided that a picture can say a thousand words (or something like that).
Nuff said I fear.
School Lunches
-25 03 09 - 19:42
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Can someone please tell me the purpose behind adding Nazi-esque restrictions and enforcing healthy eating policies upon our children?
The poor sods have enough rules and regulatins at school without some burocratic numpty in another city restricting the school lunch menu to only provide items that generally children hate. When they grow up they will be controlled by ever increasing rules and politically correct gibberish.
This will only encourage the kids to source their junk food somewhere else. I know that change is usually a good thing, but equally there are some things that are best left alone - this would be one of those things.
If it ain't broke, don't try to "fix" it.
Politically incorrect
-08 02 09 - 23:15
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In this age where people get locked up on paedophilia charges for merely taking a photo of their own child in the park (when there were other children in the park), I find it most odd that as a nation we are more then OK with TV adverts for baby products (most notably nappies) showing adults caressing the bottoms of nude babies/children.
Surely this goes completely against the message we are trying to send about paedophiles? With literally millions of GB pounds being spent on catching Internet paedophiles, it makes no sense. Read more...
England closed due to snowflakes
-03 02 09 - 04:12
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I fail to comprehend how the UK can be brought to a complete standstill simply because of a little bit of snow. It's not like we didn't know it was coming, it's been all over the news for the last week; "Siberian snow blizzards expected over the weekend..." blah blah blah.
I can only assume that the south-east of England is buried under 6 feet of snow, how else can we be excused for closing bus, rail and air services? But alas no, I see on the news that the closed down Heathrow airport is not cowering under 4 metres of snow, no, there's barely 4mm covering the ground.
The idiocy continues around the rest of the UK, in Lincolnshire for example, people have taken to driving at no faster than 14 MPH because they thought they might possibly have seen a snowflake on the ground outside their home (despite the roads being perfectly clear). I was amazed to see people braking like crazy and at the last minute as they appproched minor bends in the road (despite them only travelling at 14 MPH). Read more...
The best rant letter ever!
-27 01 09 - 17:36
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Oh, this man is spectacular and outdoes me completely in the ranting stakes! Unlike me, in his letter to Virgin the man remains reasonably calm and is, more importantly, funny.
I implore you to read the following article, it actually made me cry with laughter!
I can't help but fail to comprehend why retaillers are missing one incredibly obvious point and are not then jumping on the bandwagon.
Woolworths went into meltdown and decided that they had to sell everything off, to do this they reduced the price of their remaining stock by a relatively small amount. The result? They sold more items and made more money in one month than they had in the previous 6. Just because they simply couldn't get away with being greedy fat cats anymore.
So, why the hell don't all the other retaillers (whether struggling or not) get on the bandwagon and make reasonable, permanent price reductions? They would be astounded by the increase in sales that this would achieve. The supermarkets have already caught onto it with fuel prices, most supermarket filling stations are charging 3 or 4 pence less than the well known roadside filling station chains. The result? The supermarket filling stations are rammed full with queuing cars while the big names are offering light bulbs and cigarette lighter powered vacuum cleaners for £3.99 if you spend over £20 on fuel.
I can only assume that there is some other huge financial benefit to carrying on as you are until you are at the point where your business has to go into administration. This would explain why huge businesses that had been established for over 100 years are now disappearing in clouds of smoke after 5 days of "lower than expected" sales.
Wind Turbine madness
-10 01 09 - 00:18
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UFO's? Lightning? I am astonished at the number of bizarre explanations for the recently publicised wind turbine damage. The owners (Ecotricity) are unable to explain what caused the damage, but even they are not stupid enough to claim UFO's have damaged the blades of the turbine.
I was utterly astounded that a local councillor actually thinks there may be some truth in the UFO claim and has demanded a formal investigation to "uncover the truth" - dear God.
Can we not simply conclude the most likely and plausible cause? Humans. All those nutbags that object and complain about the wind farms destroying the environment, ruining the view and interfering with their "delicate, spiritual aura" (or whatever other bull-crap they choose to come up with) are more likely to blame. Strange lights in the night? Could it not be that an extremely disgruntled local businessman with the funds available, has simply hired a mechanical platform and gone up to the turbine with a blow torch?
I like to think that this is more likely - I also like to think that for the next couple of weeks there'll be an epidemic, in the same style as the crop circle incidents. Then it will be forgotten.
It's not UFO's, it's just sad, sad people!
Hobbycraft? Hobbydaft more like!
-07 01 09 - 11:49
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Hobbycraft's online shopping site is pants actually. I tried 4 times to order some gift vouchers using the site, only to be presented with a non-existent error each time. The site claimed that there were errors with my payment details or that my card number was wrong (I had entered the details correctly, double checking them each time). The closest I got to completing the order was the order summary page, where I could review my order and confirm that the purchase could be charged to my card. At this point I was redirected to the payment details page with an error "There was an error with your payment details" - helpful (the details were again completely accurate).
I gave up and decided to leave negative feedback, but you can't even do that without filling in a contact form which demands your full name, e-mail address and telephone number (so that they can later "spam" me with "courtesy customer satisfaction" calls or e-mails - pah!
UK Customer Service sucks
-04 01 09 - 00:55
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It has come to my attention that the UK as a nation doesn't do customer service - at all. I base this on past experiences at eating establishments, UK railways and basically any customer facing industry which is primarilly operated by British people.
For example...
1) On a train journey from Newark to London Kings Cross, my reserved seat had been taken by someone else. Obviously it is not the British way to simply kick the person out of the seat, so when the ticket inspector checked my ticket I mentioned that I couldn't find my seat. He took me to it and discovered that it was taken - already this marks a difference. Had the ticket inspector had been of British origin (rather than Czech) he would not have cared and just suggest I find another seat. Instead, he located me in a spare seat, but to my surprise, found me after he completed his inspections and moved me to a spare seat with table. A British ticket inspector would never have done that and would have completely forgotten about me.
2) At Prezzo, I had to wait 40 minutes for the starter to arrive - a cold starter that probably took less than 5 minutes to prepare. Read more...
2009 New Year, New Start
-03 01 09 - 14:04
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Wishing anyone who bothers to read this a Happy New Year. I hope that 2009 brings good luck and fortune to us all - especially me! Sadly I suspect that the year will continue to trundle along in pretty much the same manner as 2008; already 2009 begins with a slightly negative slant.
This very morning I received a letter from my estate agent informing me that the sale of my property (verbally agreed mid-December 2008) has been cancelled and the property has been returned to the market since the purchaser has pulled out of the deal.
Which means that my dreams of being financially better off and debt free within the next 12 months will be annoyingly delayed.
I am now considering simply taking the property off the market (fortunately the estate agent operates a "no sale, no fee" philosophy) and moving back in; it'll reduce travel costs for getting to work but will be offset by increased bills (council tax etc). I remain hopeful that this is the only "minor" set back for the year.