27 Jan 2011
Posted in Life, People, Rants at 10:25 pm by alby
It’s not often that I get annoyed by scams. Most are easy to see and ignore. However one from yesterday has really hacked me off.
N came home from school looking terribly excited. Apparently they did a poetry competition at school some time ago (first we’d heard of it mind). She waved us a serstificate wot said that she’d won and her poem was going to be in an anthology of the best poems in the competition. Hurrah! Very well done little girl.
Very pleased for her. She was beaming and proper excited. A published poet! At 5!
Then we get the bumph. The book is apparently a proper book and will be in the British Library! Well ooo. Doesn’t every book published in the UK get put in the BL? I thought so.
And then we get to the price. £16.99 per copy!
For a kid’s book? Forget that for a lark. We just bought a hardback, illustrated Alice in Wonderland for a quid. Is this anthology of children’s poems really worth 17 copies of Alice?
Cue some harumphing.
Well this morning it turns out that pretty much everyone at the school who submitted anything is also “a winner” and has got their own poem published in this book. Some were calling it a scam, others were upset as they’d already paid for it. Who wouldn’t want to see their child’s work published?
I don’t really blame the school for this, mind you they could have checked the internet say as there are loads of complaints about these scams. But aren’t the people responsible for this scam just scum? Horrible thing to do. The children are so excited and who could refuse buying their published work?
Well us for a start. I expect a strongly worded complaint to the school to be forthcoming soon.
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21 Dec 2010
Posted in Grammar!, Rants at 6:42 pm by alby
It’s rare that I discover something new that I loathe with a passion. However I have recently had such an experience.
It’s a word and the word is “baby”.
Note it’s the word and not the actual thing that I hate.
Actually it’s not even the word itself. “Baby” is a very useful word and describes exactly the thing you mean when you use it.
But the way it’s used in one particular way really grates.
For instance: On a piece of health advice from the local health visitor (interfering old so and sos the lot of them) it may say something akin to:
“When placing baby in bed, make sure that baby is on her back.”
The first, minor, irritation there is that babies are almost universally female in these things, assumedly the nasty militaristic nature of boys has not yet surfaced hence the natural feminisation.
But my main gripe is the use of the word “baby” to substitute for a name.
It’s ludicrous and annoying. When would one say:
“When plumber comes round make sure you have choccy biscuits and tea a plenty”?
Or:
“I can’t move this heavy item I must get man in to move it for me”?
Well you wouldn’t and that’s my point.
Please health staff use a bloody article will you!
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12 Dec 2010
Posted in Rants, Reviews at 9:26 pm by alby
Bloody hell it’s been an eye opening week in the cultural world.
I had a christmas do at work in the other day. It was in a caff somewhere near the main shopping precinct/mall. As it happened I had a few minutes to browse the local shops. My word! Does anybody actually buy the shite in the shops nowadays? Unbelievable! Cheap tat sold as luxurious, electronics that work but seem utterly pointless (3d telly I’m talking about you) and many many more examples of just how to wreck the planet for no good purpose.
Then the food was very “meh” and they sold drinks at about £5 a pint. Hardly worth it but I’m sure they’d claim a certain ambience. Oh yes and we had crackers (christmas ones not Jacobs ones); every single one of the dozen or more we had included exactly the same “novelty”. I’ve said it before but novelties only count as novel when there’s one or two of them.
The big news on the telly seems to be that X Factor and some ridiculous dancing show are the new “bread and circuses” distracting huge numbers from the realities of life. I watched a bit of the beeb one which seemed to be a geriatric trying to do jokes followed by some z listers (and Pamela Stephenson) hurling themselves around a bit notable only for some Tory MP to embarrass herself to the background of derisive hooting of many a phone voter desperate to keep her in so they could hoot derisively again in future weeks.
But tonight I’ve actually caught a song’s worth of the X Factor. Really? Is this good enough folks?
Some woman murdering a classic track (in this case “Sweet Dreams” by The Eurythmics) with ludicrous dancers while stationary warbling standing on a dais with wobbly legs as well as vocals.
And the winner is Cowell who proclaimed something like “a great choice of song and a fantastic performance”. No it wasn’t. It was an ok Kareoke performance with ideas far far above its station. How people can’t see that the only winner of this ridiculous piece of crap is Cowell escapes me.
Come on people there’s so much more out there that’s infinitely more inspiring and emotional and wondrous than the utter crap htat’s being fed through the telly nowadays and it’s really not hard to find.
It’s a damned good job we have the students around to demonstrate that some people still care about life and haven’t just given up.
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27 Aug 2010
Posted in Life, Rants at 2:18 pm by alby
The flat roof of my place has been a pain in the proverbial for some time. I think it started when some kids found a way to sit on it to natter. Alternatively it could simply have been wear and tear. I’ve been at the place for 8 years or so and the roof hasn’t been maintained at all in that time. So now it leaks – quite a bit.
I spoke to a company to come and estimate me a repair job. They dutifully did and wrote me a detailed plan and costing for the job.
I phone them up and said please do come and sort it.
The woman on the other end of the phone said. “Oh you need to sign the form that came with the letter and send it in.”
Can I find the letter? Well what do you think?
So my roof is still leaking.
Got to R’s place yesterday after work to discover a minor flappage ongoing as water was now dripping into her bedroom. Thankfully small amounts though considering how heavy and persistent the rain was yesterday.
She phoned the landlords who said it wasn’t urgent. Oh really?! Not urgent that there’s potentially a hole in the roof letting in water. I suppose you could argue that it’s unlikely to ever rain in the UK so there’s no hurry.
Oh wait a minute….No you can’t!
Grr.
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18 Aug 2010
Posted in Rants, Work at 4:28 pm by alby
At work we occasionally (sometimes often) have to use interpreters with our patients.
The commonest languages (Gujurati, Punjabi etc) are supported by a partner organisation. They’re very good.
For those languages that they don’t cover we use the local city council’s interpreting service. The interpreters again are usually very good.
With both sets of staff we have to fill in a form for them to take back to the office. This lets the office know that they turned up on time and did their job well etc.
Now the council staff have a set of questions including this one:
Are you aware of the council’s interpreting service?
This might be a good question if you were asking it to a random person with no need of an interpreting service.
However, I’ve just spent any amount of time up to an hour or so with a patient and one of your interpreters! So what do you think I’m going to answer to that stupid question? It’s one of your interpreters who’s handing me the form with the question on it!
If anyone can think of anything witty and erudite that won’t get me sacked that I can write in answer to that next time I’ll be much obliged.
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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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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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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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