Archive for the ‘general annoyances’ Category

For once I was winning!  If you can call it that.  During my last visit to my favourite most hated shop (here on named as “Tescon”) I noticed that they had a number of “special offers”.  We all know these bastards don’t give anything away, you need to be ever vigilant as you perform your role of modern-hunter-gatherer, watching out for the genuine deals whilst avoiding those products whose prices fluctuate more erratically than the stock markets.

Having reached the detergent aisle I spotted a “reduced to clear” deal on Fairy Platinum.  Being a somewhat antagonistic person I accepted the challenge and grabbed six bottles from the shelves, marked down to half-price.  I say “antagonistic” as my primary motivator for my purchase was not making savings over the coming weeks / months of use of the new washing-up liquid, it was in fact the anticipation of the smugness which I would assume on my return home as my wife hopped onto her high-horse to inform me yet again that we’d be better off buying Aldi’s washing up liquid which “is better than the branded equivalents as judged by Which magazine” or some other miserable shite-rag.  My comeback would indeed by glorious as I proudly informed her that these were indeed half-price bargains.  Win for me, no less.

My glory was short-lived on my return home when I eventually engaged smug-mode only to check the receipt to demonstrate proof of my retail-prowess, only to find that the shit-head-bastards had charged me full price for each of the six bottles as well as the “bargain” marked down packs of multi-surface-wipes” that I’d procured.

To say that my other-half was enjoying her new-found excuse to berate me for “not checking the receipt before [I] left the store” is under-egging it somewhat.  Though I’d never go as far as to mention the words “pig in shit” for fear of… well… being given the “silent treatment” for days on end.

Hope was momentarily restored as she reminded me that if I went back, Tescon would provide me with “double the difference” back if I were able to point out their error.  Jubilant I was.  But there was no way she was letting me off lightly.  She quickly dropped me back to the ground with a bang as she pointed out that if somebody else complained about the same mistake before me, then Tesco would remove the offer from the shelves and I’d have no comeback at all.

Fairy Liquid offer

I burned rubber and arrived back at Tescon promptly to find that, well, to cut a long story short they honoured the deal and gave me £16 back and also allowed me to keep the products which caused all the fuss.  The wife was correct however as they noticed their mistake (the offer was for a 650ml bottle but the shelf contained 625ml bottles – go figure that one out!?!) they promptly removed any trace of the offer, effectively fucking over every other customer who’d put faith in what they had seen on the shelf but hadn’t checked their receipts.

Total con-merchant bastards.  I wonder how much money they make per week through such stunts, I bet it far outweighs the gesture of giving back “double the difference” to the eagle-eyed amongst us.

Moral of the story: be wary.  Fuckhead supermarkets are aplenty.

What happened yesterday seems pretty disgusting on the face of the known facts, there are many who are questioning what actually happened, the authenticity of the images shown to us on the news and so on but I don’t want to get drawn into that.

fucktards

The aftermath of this event is what takes me by surprise, the ever-growing army of fucktards who take to social media claiming outrage and disgust, calling for all Muslims to leave the country, blaming them all for the actions of the psychotic few.  The people posting these status messages and comments on the news stories all seem to have one thing in common too, they generally have an ignorant point of view, their spelling and grammar is atrocious and their own views are pretty extreme too.

Assuming we stick to the “known facts” for a moment, then on this one I have much sympathy for the family of the murdered soldier (they’re still saying he’s a soldier right?) because for one, he was not out in another country “performing his duty”.  It grinds my gears a bit when I see people complaining about soldiers dying whilst out fighting, what the hell were they expecting might happen when you go to “war”?

Anyway, back to my point.  I just don’t get why its the seemingly stupid that have the loudest voices, I’ve seen many posts from Muslims (sane, peaceful Muslims) speaking out against what happened yesterday, begging the British public not to tar them all with the extremist brush only to be told by thick-twats to “shut up” or “go home” – it makes me truly ashamed and embarrassed for us all.

sheep-shaggerTo suggest that all Muslims are mentalists with nothing but the destruction of the west on their minds is a bit like suggesting all Welsh people fornicate with livestock when we all know it’s just the sheep farmers right?  (just kidding!).  But my point is still sort of valid, just because one Welsh guy may have got caught shagging a sheep up against a cliff edge, does not make us all dirty-wool-wankers.  And by the same logic, because there are some fruit-cake Muslims out there who bend the meaning of their religion to fit their own warped views does not make them all crazy.

I watched a video earlier with an extremist Muslim march against the UK, taking place in the UK by a bunch of freaks who think they can come over here (OK, they may have been born here to immigrant parents who don’t share their views) and tell us that our laws don’t apply, they won’t follow them because they’re not Islamic laws.  Well maybe these people should go live in an Islamic country if that is what they want, but again I say, this is NOT what the Muslims I’ve met believe, they have all been genuinely nice, friendly people who are happy to peacefully get along and live their own lives, not wanting to change the rest of us to fit in with them.

I’m getting increasingly hacked off by what I am seeing in my social media feeds and other places on the internet every time there is an extremist event, the idiots need to pipe down a bit and stop and think before they post their small-minded views for all to see.  They are giving us all a bad name.  Just like “Dai-the-sheep” did for the Welsh.

 

 

I got into another discussion (argument) this morning over “The Polish”. It’s not just about them, but you always seem to be hearing about “The Polish” on the news. I think there is some truth in parts of what is being said, there do seem to be a heck of a lot of them over here. What I don’t agree so much with is the “taking our jobs” crap.

Foreigners Taking Our Jobs!

From what I can see, and this is a pretty uneducated and unscientific point of view, most of the jobs taken by Polish people are lower paid and frankly quite shitty jobs. Jobs that mostly, I certainly would not even want to do.
The argument presented to me was this:

“But is it fair that a British person doesn’t get a job because they aren’t willing to work longer hours and so the Polish person gets the job because they are?”

Well of fucking course it is… who in their right minds would employ the person thats being most obstructive…

“Sorry mate, I know you’re willing to work harder than the British guy but I’m going to give him the job and put my business at a disadvantage because you are Johnny Foreigner”

I bloody well think not. Too many people in this country think they have some god-given right to keep their job even though they spend large parts of their day surfing the internet, gossiping with their mates, taking fag breaks and pulling sick days every time their child-care lets them down.

We’re supposed to be in a weak economy here, jobs are hard to come by in the first place, so why the hell are so many British people not happy to have a job in the first place?

Polish or otherwise, if the guy next to you is prepared to do a better job than you are, don’t be surprised if he is the one that stays whilst you are shoved out the door like the lazy bastard scumbag that you are.

Now don’t get me wrong, a lot on the news lately is discussing peoples concerns over Bulgarians and Romanians coming over in their masses, this could certainly pose problems… but the issue here for me is the ease at which these fuckers (and our own fuckers) can get their grubby, scrounging mits on my “tax-dollars”.
And so I propose a two year limit where by you have to have been in employment and paying taxes (or at least get a tax credit for your efforts) before you qualify for handouts. Yes… that goes for you too “Mr I’ve never had a job in my life but I’m British” – you sir are a lazy fuckwit and you need to contribute before you can moan on about how “all these foreigners” are stopping you from getting a job.

Take responsibility for your own life or fuck off.

Having visited Cardiff last weekend I was struck by the sheer number of Big Issue sellers we passed. Passing a Big Issue seller is an artform that needs to be practiced. I’m starting to think that they should be restricted to the point where they are not allowed to sell the magazine if they veer more than 12 inches from their allocated spot. Even if you start to take a diagonal path to avoid them you still seem to get trapped in their net.

Big Issue Magazine

Big Issue Magazine

The first one I interacted with was on Friday night, I was on my way back to the hotel with my wife, drunk at which point an almost elderly Big Issue seller approached us.

“Big Issue sir” he said.

Now in my head I was forming the words “No thanks”, aiming to stay polite but to the point. Unfortunately by the time these words reached my mouth they had morphed into…

“No chance!” – at which point I carried on walking, looking rude and to the point instead.

Saturday morning came and I lost count of how many I passed before even having breakfast. Now I understand the point of these people selling the Big Issue, but I just wish they would sell something I’d actually want. I would prefer to just give money to them but apparently they “don’t want charity” – but isn’t it charity to buy something off of them that you’re just going to throw straight in the bloody bin?

The only plausible use I can think of for a fucking Big Issue is to beat away other Big Issue sellers. Some of them are amusing and take on an almost “street performer” persona in trying to convince you to purchase their special brand of printed toilet paper where as others are just downright rude and smelly, particularly if you decline to purchase from them.

What really fucked me off royally though was passing one particular Big Issue seller who was not trying particularly hard to sell any copies because he was too busy chatting on his mobile phone! I mean really… his MOBILE PHONE!!! How the fuck can he afford a mobile phone from selling the Big Issue? Where in his mind does he consider topping up his mobile to be a priority over clothing, food and a warm place to live?

Now I hope at this point you’re as fucking irritated as I was (am) because I am about to make it worse… I checked his phone out… it was an iPhone!!! A bastard iPhone. A minimum of a 4 as well, not a poxy out of date 3G, no a bloody 4, 4s or 5 from what I could tell.

iPhone Rocking Homeless Dude

iPhone Rocking Homeless Dude

So there he stands, in the middle of the street, selling the Big Issue, making us all think he is homeless and starving whilst standing there rocking a £400 handset! Simply selling that fecking phone could get him a deposit on a place to live for a month!!!

FUCK OFF!!! That is the last time I worry about passing up the opportunity to buying that rag of shite from a guy who is claiming he can only get to sleep by stuffing the unsold copies down his trousers for warmth!

Next time, come to me and ask me to buy you a fucking sandwich!!! Fuckers!

Good morning… and Happy New Year to you all.  I held back on this one yesterday, after all, who wants to start a new year on a grumping note?  The thing is, I did get reminded yesterday what a terrible invention the telephone is.

The last phone I actually liked!

The last phone I actually liked!

In my house (or should I say “our house”?) I generally avoid answering the telephone.  In fact, I pretty much avoid using it at all as much as possible.  I dislike the phone.  I prefer web based forms, instant messaging and email.  I am not a fan of text messaging, I don’t even understand the majority of messages that are sent to me as they contain such idiocies as “hello m8 hw r u feeling grt to hear uv hd a gr8 time” or some other nonsense.  This is ten times worse when you are receiving it from someone of my age.  You almost expect it from “the kidz”.

Anyway, back to the reasons I hate the phone in its original sense.  I mean, house phones… land lines… they are the worst in fact.  You generally don’t know who is calling you (unless you have caller ID enabled) and so is that call from someone you actually WANT to speak to?  Is the call even for me?  Probably not… the thing is, surely if someone wants to get hold of me then they can call me on my mobile!?!  This is one of the reasons I don’t want to answer that damned land-line… it’s probably not even for me!

So anyway, the fact that I don’t know who it is, what or who they want is only part of my problem with it.  Over the years I’ve noticed that humans (dogs don’t generally answer the phone) seem to have become conditioned to picking up the phone no matter what it is they are doing at that time, like this small bleeping, ringing irritating device in the corner of the room somehow trumps everything else that’s going on.

“Whats that?  We’re sat down to lunch?  Never mind that… someone is phoning us… lets answer it.  Whatever the person on the other end wants is surely more important than having our dinner!”

“Oh my fucking god!!!  The phone is ringing… I no longer give a shit what you were saying to me face to face… the phone is ringing… the world may stop turning if I don’t answer!”

I mean, seriously, what is going on?  I’ve experienced this many times at home and at work.  My job requires me to travel hundreds of miles across the country to visit clients and it is intensely irritating to find that when I’ve made the effort to negotiate hundreds of miles of Britain’s motorways, traffic jams, public transport and generally crap hotels, putting vast distances between me and my loved ones and neglecting to spend time building Lego with my children (deep breath) that I find that I sit down with somebody whose phone then rings and they say “hang on a minute, I just need to get this…”

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN “I NEED TO GET THIS” – THE CRETINOUS FUCK HEAD ON THE OTHER END OF THAT PHONE LINE HAS MADE THE GARGANTUAN EFFORT TO LIFT THE RECEIVER AND PUNCH SOME BUTTONS AND YOU PUT THEM BEFORE ME!?!?!?!??  WHAT THE FUCK!?!?

Let’s face it, you would never do this  in person would you?  Rock up to a bunch of people having a meal, or in a meeting and without so much as saying “excuse me” begin to start blathering on about whatever pointless and generally unimportant nonsense you generally go on to phone people about?

Possibly the only phone you should ever interrupt what you are doing for...

Possibly the only phone you should ever interrupt what you are doing for…

Jeez – just stop with the fucking phone answering… if it’s not the red bat-phone then it’s probably not urgent.  Those people who bothered to be physically with you are the ones most deserving of your attention.

Curiously I just noticed that my mobile phone has done me one huge favour lately, its experiencing the latest iPhone bug meaning that its got stuck in “Do Not Disturb” mode… top class!  I hope they make this a feature!

 

I live in Melbourne and like a lot of new designed cites it has the grid system in abundance. Apart from it being the originator of the term grid locked it creates another problem. Pedestrians need to cross roads so we have a system of buttons and lights that assist us with this, you may be familiar with the system yourself. It is a simple system, you press the button and the lights stop the traffic. In a grid system you have a lot of intersections where people need to cross but it is also quite simple, when the cars are travelling North to South the pedestrians can cross North to South and when the cars are travelling East to West the pedestrians can cross East to West. There is a phase and a predictable order to this. When you introduce people into this system there are a number of things that really piss me off. The first one is people who press the button when there are already people at the crossing waiting for the lights to change. What this dumb fuck is really saying when he or she does this is, “ok, I have arrived at a crossing and there is a bunch of people standing there, they have evolved to the point where they have developed speech and are wearing clothes, many of them have suits on suggesting professional jobs, but I don’t think any of these bastards know what the button is for so I am going to press it and teach them an important life lesson”.

Press the button ONCE!!! IF YOU HAVE TO!

This creates the second thing that pisses me off. They never ever press it once, they always press it three times, every time this happens I feel the rage build up inside of me. All I want to do is turn round and say in utter astonishment, “fuck me is that what that button is for? We have all been stood here for fucking ages, it is a good thing you came a long when you did!” And then I would enter into a line of questioning around why you need to press it three times. There are a lot of buttons in my life and pretty much all of them only need to be pressed once in order for them to do what I want them to do, the light switch only needs to be pressed once, the TV remote only needs to be pressed once, I only have to press the key fob to my car once to unlock the doors and thank fuck I only have to press the buttons on my keyboard once otherwise this rant would take me three times as long. In fact the only button that I can think of that needed multiple and rapid pressing was the one on that arcade game Track and Field where fervent button pressing results in the little dude running faster, jumping higher, or throwing further.

Finally after they have done the three button press, they wait for about 20 or 30 seconds and they press it again. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO CHANGE QUICKER JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE ARRIVED AND PRESSED THE FUCKING BUTTON A LOT OF TIMES!!!!

Severn Bridge Rant

Posted: November 28, 2012 in general annoyances, Travel
Tags: ,

This is my first rant in quite some time and its not going to be a fun one. I am genuinely pissed off. The Severn Bridge have seen fit to pander to the idiots who can’t be bothered to make sure they have cash on them before they travel.
Since time began the Severn Bridge has required payment to cross (may require citation) and still fuckwits turn up with no cash, not enough cash, the wrong currency, whatever and expect to get across.

myWPEdit Image

 

So in an attempt to get more money (I guess), the bridge owners in their wisdom have introduced card payment machines… to every sodding booth! So because its available it seems that suddenly 70% (not an accurate estimation) of people crossing the bridge now use cards to pay. This takes ages and causes me (and other cash carrying geniuses) to have an even longer wait to get on with our journeys than ever before.
Between incorrect PIN entries, dirty chips, general failures, stolen cards whatever, the average time for each car to get through now seems to be around 30 seconds or more. Probably more. I should time it, but that would take time.
I humbly suggest that a couple of “fuckwit lanes” be opened, down at the slow-lane side of the bridge where all the assholes who want to pay by card can queue together creating a line of knob heads that reaches Bristol. The rest of us can continue our journeys efficiently.
Alternatives that I’d approve of could include a “fuckwit tax” so card payments could be £10 per crossing rather than £6 – maybe this way we (the intelligent cash carriers) won’t have to suffer the annual price increases as the fuckwits can subsidise us, or at the very least maybe only allow contact-less payments? That at least is quick and suitable for purpose.
Now more than ever I think I should get that Severn Bridge Tag – I can join the smug few that drive on through, merely slowing down and very rarely stopping as they pass by the fuckwits and cash-carrying plebs.

Now here is a question, is it ok for me to pick on the disabled? Of course it is! I’d pick on anyone, I don’t exclude myself from ridicule, you’ll have seen that if you’ve read any of my other posts, so why should somebody escape just because they have a disability? Isn’t that a form of positive discrimination? Why yes it is. So let’s rock on…

I went to the cinema at the weekend, the film was popular, so the theatre was full up, we basically got first row seats, just behind the “flid zone” – great I thought, I can stretch my legs here, right where the wheelchairs would go. After all, there is not likely to be any wheelchair types coming in tonight.
WRONG! As soon as I said it, in comes wheelchair dude. He parks himself right in front of me. Suddenly my clear view becomes a clear view with head-shaped chunk cut out of the bottom of the screen. FFS!

I’m sat there thinking to myself, “can I ask him to lower his head?”, I shift uncomfortably in my seat muttering to myself, reassuring myself that I should let him disrupt my view because, surely, he is a really nice guy. Aren’t they all? The Inbetweeners had a go at this one, the wheelchair guy in that show was a complete berk.

Anyway, I contemplate moving, there are a couple of free seats over to my right, but wait, will I get frowned upon for getting pissed off by a disabled guy? I don’t know!?! What is the protocol for these situations.
Can I simply wheel him away like Alan Partridge at the Colmans party?

Anyway, I don’t have any cutting remarks or nasty things to say about this guy, he did fuck all to me and to be fair, he probably didn’t even realise his egg-shaped head was even in my way. But what I want to know is why nobody has invented a wheelchair with a system to lower the seat or even some sort of trap-door that I could activate to get him out of my bloody way.

The Dark Knight rises. I wish I fucking had. Maybe I’d have been able to see above his fucking head!

Fuck you Tesco. You have RUINED Strawberry Bon Bons. Back in the day you could look forward to getting your fingers covered in pink strawberry dust after popping a Strawberry Bon Bon into your mouth, you would suck off all the flavour, then once that lovely flavour has gone, you’d bite it gently so that the sugary shell (approx 3mm thick) crumbles off to reveal the toffee centre.


Tesco in their wisdom, have seen fit to “improve” the recipe. The packet proudly declares “Improved! Recipe (Recipe)” – I was intrigued at first, curious to find just how the (clearly) brilliant minds employed by Tesco had utilised their vast genius to improve something that hasn’t needed to be improved in 50 years (this is an approximation – no scientific or statistical effort was used in calculating this time frame).

Sadly, I didn’t agree with them that their recipe was improved. NO MR TESCO! You’ve not improved the recipe at all. What you have done is totally ruined / altered beyond recognition, one of the all time greats.
A hard, strawberry-flavoured ball covered in pink dust is NOT a Strawberry Bon Bon.

Take my advice, shoot the chef. Shoot the testers. Bring back the authentic strawberry bon bon. In-fact, your marketing department can then put a positive spin on things by branding the new packaging as “Authentic Traditional Strawberry Bon Bons”.

This one is a few days late but thats pretty much just because I forgot about my blog.

We took the kids on a day out that had so much promise of being great. The website really should have sounded the warning bells, after all, what tourist attraction has a website with just three pages and minimal pictures?

20120408-173436.jpg

The website proudly states “Pay once & all manned rides are free” – completely misleading to skim readers but hardly the parks fault. What is their fault though is that the place is a complete joke and a rip off.

The so-called rides are total shite, mostly hangovers from the 80’s and the dinosaur models are uninspired hunks of plastic.

Fancy a game of uphill golf? Don’t bother, it’s a total joke. This place is like something out of a comedy sketch show.
The kids went ip to the top of the wavy slide thingy, from there you can easily see just how awfully wank the place is. Up there I mentioned this to a mum who was supervising her kids, her response was that they wished they hadn’t bothered going but as they’d travelled down from York, they HAD to go after promising the kids.

So the day out, for a family of four cost just shy of £40. That’s quite steep for two hours of “fun”. Money that would perhaps have been better spent on a few minutes of lap dancing.
We only lasted two hours because we got lost in the maze…

20120408-174507.jpg

In short, because the place doesn’t even deserve this much effort, we left because the kids actually ASKED to go.

This place could actually be great. The idea is a fine one, that could work great in this part of the country, what it needs is a considerable amount of dynamite and an experienced demolition team.
Start from scratch before we see kids turn to suicide bombing in protest at the utter shite they are being subjected to.

20120408-175127.jpg