26 Feb 2010
Posted in Life, News, Rants at 5:23 pm by alby
I’ve just sent off for my first DAB radio.
This is the one wot I ordered: here. To replace the ancient midi system I have had in my middle room for years which only seems to work with AM radio now.
Nice features, great reviews, swanky bit of kit. Thank you very much.
But then the problems start:
First of all I get a delivery card through my door (from “Home Delivery Network”). Not too surprising seeing as I “work” n’all. The delivery co say go their website and pick a different day for delivery. OK no problem.
Oh but they only do Mon-Fri delivery. So that’s useful then what with me, you know, “working”.
No matter I am at home for at least an afternoon a week. Ah that’s not helpful their delivery slots are “7am -7pm”. In other words if I want them to do their job (IE deliver me something they’ve been paid to deliver to me) I must take a day off work.
I wouldn’t trust any of the neighbours round here and there’s no “safe place” for the driver to leave it.
I have another option which is to pick it up from their depot. In Nottingham. Thanks very much. I may as well have just bloody driven down to Amazon’s warehouse in Milton Keynes and not bothered with the delivery.
Doesn’t all of this screw around with the whole bloody point of mail order service? You know, the whole “not having to go and pick it up” thing?
I wrote a very grumpy email to Amazon who, to be fair, did respond quickly but then used the line
“Currently, we do not have the ability to assign certain carriers to a specific customer or address”
What? I find this astonishing if true. They’re the ones who pay the carrying company. But they can’t specify which carrier takes which order? I’m nearly speechless.
I’ve ordered plenty of things from them before and have had to pick orders up which have been unable to be delivered but these items end up in the central post office in the centre of town. So why the hell does this one have to be a: given to a company that is unable to do the job they’ve been employed to do, b: unable to be given to a carrier that actually IS able to do the job or at least will get it to within a couple of miles of my house and c: this snazzy wotsit I’m actually really looking forward to playing with and getting use out of?
Bloody hell!
And just to cap this annoying little episode one of the main reasons I bought a DAB radio was to listen to 6music which looks like it may well be being got rid of in the next round of BBC cuts. Yes that’s right one of few stations on the BBC that actually looks after their public service remit is being cut whilst BBC3 isn’t, BBC1 remains appalling, BBC2 is a pale shadow of what it once was and only BBC4 is showing much of what they should be producing and showing us (and isn’t safe from the chop either).
Bad mood day today.
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24 Feb 2010
Posted in News at 3:53 pm by alby
The beeb had a “have you say” about the government’s advisory panel coming down against homeopathy on the NHS. One missive had this rather sweet comment included:
What is, in my view, more of a waste of money in many cases is the use of physiotherapy when it is clear that chiropractic or osteopathy would provide a more permanent improvement in the patient’s condition.
Nice. I’ll let you make your own minds up what I think about this.
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15 Feb 2010
Posted in News, People, Rants at 2:11 pm by alby
Apparently the truth can be decided upon by sheer popularity. I knew this happened in the past (see religion for details) but surely now we actually know some stuff.
From a letter in the local rag from an MEP no less:
I may sometimes take a nuanced view, for example on climate, I am at least in line with public opinion.
A recent BBC poll showed that after the scandals around the Climate Research Unit and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, only 26% of voters still believe in man-made global warming.
Ah so that’s alright then. Lots of people don’t believe it therefore it’s not happening. Glad to see we sorted out the whole ecogeddon thing simply by closing our eyes and singing la la la.
At least it’s someone I now know not to vote for. Idiot.
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01 Feb 2010
Posted in News, Rants at 1:59 pm by alby
Seems this anti-homeopathy protest (10:23) has confused an awfy lot of folk.
Naysayers re hom are saying it doesn’t work.
Yaysayers are saying an variety of things. Namely:
- “Ah but yes it does. My cat had severe cirrhosis of the liver and they were going to amputate its face but then a homeopath gave it some pills and it’s been fine since. That was 15 years ago.”
- “But I had herbal medicine once and got better”. What this has to do with homeopathy is anyone’s guess.
- “The evil bad pharma people want you to think that it doesn’t work. It’s because they don’t control it and can’t charge you vast amounts for it.” Quite why these loons think that “big pharma” can’t extort a fiver for a small bottle of water is anyone’s guess. I thought it was only charlatans and frauds that repackage water as something it’s not.
- “Some other random treatment I tried worked therefore homeopathy is correct.
This last one was shown on the Beeb today with this marvellous burst of ignorance:
Laughingly this stunt to me actually proves the benefits of homeopathy. Surely the fact you can’t overdose is a positive. Taken with a common sense approach homeopathy can be used to compliment modern medicine. This polemic argument does no one any good. If I have an infection I take antibiotics, but correct exercise and diet has done more to control my back pain than pain killers.
“the fact that you can’t overdose is a positive”? Really. In that case lets all start using air as a remedy. Oh they’ve probably done that already. Has this guy never heard of drowning? That’s a clear overdose of homeopathic “medicine”.
The killer bit is the last phrase of the letter.
“correct exercise and diet has done more to control my back pain than pain killers.”
Maybe that’s because exercising is by far the best treatment for general back pain. Analgesia just kills the pain for a bit, if you don’t deal with the underlying fitness issues then the pain won’t go away long term. The good diet bit has probably allowed you to lose a bit of weight which will stress your back less. And being healthy generally will help with aches and pains.
This literally isn’t rocket science. It’s also nothing to do with homeopathy.
I mean really.
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27 Jan 2010
Posted in News at 8:42 pm by alby
Computer company brings out computer.
Is this really that exciting?
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05 Jan 2010
Posted in News, Rants at 5:10 pm by alby
Head teacher to bullied child’s parent: “Well I’m afraid your son deserved it. He’s ginger you see.”
Grr. The idiocy of it.
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23 Dec 2009
Posted in News, People at 4:42 pm by alby
This needs no comment from me. Here’s a letter from today’s Leicester Mercury. OMW.
I enjoy all forms of music from heavy rock to punk, garage, hip-hop, disco and even classical. Every Christmas from the very early 1960s I have bought the Christmas No 1 song and have never been disappointed.
Over the many years they have all been relevant to the season and most have contained in some form the spirit of Christmas. They were all able to be enjoyed and understood by the whole of society.
The current Christmas No 1, to be brutally frank, is the worst piece of music I have ever heard. It has not one solitary thing to do with this time of year and was apparently composed and played by a group of talentless and mindless youths who have engaged the “power” of that other waste-of-space, society-destroying junk, Facebook, which they have used to rally an easily-led and seemingly mindless section of our society into making some form of protest.
Rage against the “whatever” gives the truth to the story. Exactly what that protest is about I dread to think.
Even as I briefly watched the so-called performance of it, I could only describe that as being performed by a group of seriously demented individuals who had no idea of how ridiculous they looked.
Hopefully, this will be their one and only entry into the music world and they will disappear. Any DJ who gives this “music” airtime should be suspended – thankfully, some DJs have already stated that they will not play that piece of auditory torturous junk. Those are the ones I will listen to – and my extensive collection of CDs of past No 1s, too.
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06 Nov 2009
Posted in News at 10:18 am by alby
A couple of things from the local rag’s letters page.
First was a random love letter. Someone (whose name they did actually print) wrote in apologising to someone (unnamed) for doing something, the worst thing she’s ever done (apparently).
And this was not only considered for publication but actually published. Very odd indeed. Wonder if the letters page is being opened for all correspondence re affairs of the heart.
Next was this message about allergies.
“Do any readers have an allergy to fragrance, and if so, how do they cope with it, and also has anyone has found a cure?”
Maybe you’re not asking the right people. Try the medics.
After some more rubbish about “how doctors know nothing” she goes on to:
“I have been having homeopathy treatment for two years, combined with anti-migraine tablets at night, and now I just have headache and depressive/flu-like symptoms for three days, instead of three days in bed with violent migraine.”
Is this the marvellous “I take strong migraine tablets but it’s the homeopathy that helps” line of reasoning? I wonder if the homeopathy is the water she swallows the migraine tablets with?
And to finish:
“I am unemployable”
You don’t say.
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20 Oct 2009
Posted in News at 11:37 am by alby
Seems the local big theatre is struggling for cash after being badly run for ages. This was reported in the local paper.
But it seems certain other people see a reason beyond incompetent management as a reason for its difficulties.
Apparently God is smiting it as they were one of the venues wot put Jerry Springer The Opera on.
Yes that sounds more likely.
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