[Wobble]

Convolvulus

 

[munter]

Oxalis

 

[StuBeeDoo]

OK, here's another "cash vs. card" event that made me grumpy yesterday, in a branch of a large electrical/IT chain. I was passing, and remembered I could do with a spindle of CD-Rs, so I popped-in.

I found what I wanted, and took it to the pay-point. Only 1 terminal manned, by 2 young lads making a meal of dealing with a customer, at least 4 terminals un-staffed. I waited, and a queue started to form behind me. Several staff went to un-staffed terminals, faffed-about, then walked away. Queue getting longer, 2 lads still dealing with the same customer. Eventually (it must have been 5mins minimum) a member of staff come to me and asks "Are you waiting to pay?". I politely tell him I am, and he walks away. Some time after that, some more young lads arrive and start leading people from behind me in the queue to vacant terminals. An older member of staff comes to me, takes my potential purchase from my hand and leads me to another terminal. He scans the spindle of CD-Rs then asks me to put my card in the keypad. I say "I'm paying cash" and wave the tenner I've been holding all this time..........................

"Sorry, you'll have to go to that till" he says, pointing to the one where the 2 lads are still trying (and, obviously, failing......) to deal with the same customer that was there when I formed the queue "... it's the only one we can take cash at."

So by now I'm really charred-off,

and I'm not that desperate for the CD-Rs, so I tell him.......... "You know what? I've been waiting long enough, I'll leave it." And I walk out.

I'm willing to bet that if I'd have been spending multiple £100s on a piece of tech he'd have found a way of taking my cash.

 

[dvd3500]

Try being in line here in Germany when a cash register opens up... I have seen 90 year-olds almost commit manslaughter to beat small children in front of them in line to get to the newly opened register.

I have never seen this anywhere else in the world... when I ask a German why he thought jumping the queue was OK he just opened and closed his mouth like I asked him if it is ok to starve puppies to death...

Apparently it is all men for themselves when a new cashier arrives...

 

[Gripping Pneus]

A German businessman of my acquaintance told me he used Ryanair a lot. I asked him how he could tolerate the mad scramble when the gates open and he said "I enjoy it - I am German".

 

[gus3049]

Blurry Farcebook.

I have no interest at all in joining in the farce of social media. OK, it is or was useful to see some slot related stuff but I treated it as no different to a photo sharing site. Tried to have a look at what is happening at Bordeaux as I have done occasionally and I can't. They no longer allow access unless you sign up. I don't want to so yet another source of information and enjoyment is cut off.

This is annoying.

 

[PETER GUNN]

The return of the return , or as i shall call it the saga of the toaster , just before xmas a new toaster was bought from a large supplier so thought xmas day will use the new toaster so plugged it in and nothing happened , checked what i could, you know making sure it wasn't a twit moment well it wasn't so thought as you do i'll take it back .

Left it a few days for things to calm down and sauntered into this large shop, spoke to a very nice lady and explained to her about the toaster, she redirected me to the inquiry desk and another very nice lady was there told her the same thing as i told the other lady .

This lady wanted to know more and got the toaster out of the box and said, so it,s not working sir , no it,s not, have you any idea why it,s not , no i haven't it,s just not working, then she asked me to wait a moment .

Then a very nice young lad came over and for the third time i said the same thing as i had said to the other members of staff and he said that's strange sir never had a problem with this make before, any idea why it,s not working, no sorry it,s just not working, when you plugged it in did it work, no it didn't , not at all sir, no it didn't , oh come with me sir so i followed him over to another counter and he explained to this older man what my problem was, and he said sorry to hear the toaster isn't working sir, any idea why it,s not, no it,s just not working, oh dear that's not right , would sir like a replacement or a refund , i said a replacement please as i have no toaster, that's ok sir i'll get you one just wait here , so i waited for 10 minutes.

Along came another lady clutching a box with a brand new toaster in and apologised for the delay and presented me with the toaster, Friday morning i put 4 slices of bread in my brand new toaster and nothing happened.

 

[gus3049]

Did you check the socket

 

[Ecurie Martini]

Blurry Farcebook.

I have no interest at all in joining in the farce of social media. OK, it is or was useful to see some slot related stuff but I treated it as no different to a photo sharing site. Tried to have a look at what is happening at Bordeaux as I have done occasionally and I can't. They no longer allow access unless you sign up. I don't want to so yet another source of information and enjoyment is cut off.

This is annoying.

I'm 100% with you on this point. Among other things, my cellular phone is just that - a telephone, no more, no less. Part of my refusal to join the "iPhone" herd is the fact that my carrier would insist that I buy a data plan, irrespective of the amount of use that I would make of it. This would immediately double my monthly rate. Additionally, my current "flip phone" fits nicely into a pocket, is well protected and, with my typical use, lasts at least a week between charges.

I have no interest in cataloging my daily activities nor in reading other's arbitrarily length constrained accounts of theirs. For me, the value proposition of "social media" beyond the enrichment of a few individuals offering yet another platform for the dissemination of annoying advertisements is hard to discern.

EM

 

[Dopamine]

I'm another who doesn't use social media. Not because I can't, but because I choose not to. I'm not blind to it, and occasionally look at a Facebook page if a link takes me there, but I have no interest in becoming a member. In my business life I even advertised on Facebook, having been told that "you must" have a Facebook presence, but the return wasn't there. Those telling me that "you must" could never explain why I must, just that I must. An eyes shut charge with the masses for fear of being left behind.

This might be a wide generalisation, but it seems to me that Facebook and other social media use is directly proportional to the user's self worth, insecurities and ego. The egotists love nothing more than broadcasting their lives, the rest partake because they can't cope with feeling left out.

 

[StuBeeDoo]

That ^^^ is my take on it, as well.

 

[Gareth]

The return of the return , or as I shall call it the saga of the toaster ,

Yes I think I would have been fuming by that point.

By the way Asda sell a 4 slice toaster for under £20 and it works very well indeed. Of course it doesn't come with Wi-Fi or spoken toast recipes and you can't make phone calls with it but it does make toast.

 

[CMOTD]

My first grump of 2019 - lorry racing! No, not 1/32 or the stuff you see at Brands but artics taking 3 miles to overtake another one and holding up a huge queue.

Just after Christmas I was returning from Newark to King's Lynn on the A17. It is a lousy road and you invariably get stuck behind trucks for a fair while. There are realistically only two places available to overtake them. I followed two of the things until we reached the first, an uphill section with a slow lane and an overtaking lane. I pulled out and the rearmost lorry promptly cut in front of me and stayed in the lane all the way up the hill in a vain attempt to pass the other. At the end of the hill he gave up and pulled back in behind the first one.

Five miles further on we reached the only bit of dual carriageway on the whole road and he did it again! After two miles he finally managed his overtake and I drove past both of them at last! A mile later I was confronted with two more of them doing exactly the came thing. Sat behind them all the way home. Why on earth do they do it? If there is only a speed differential of 1mph what is there to gain in overall journey time?

 

[dvd3500]

Image that here where come up on that at over 200 kph... last year alone there were nearly 2 dozen accidents because of truck/lorry drivers within a 15 km radius.

I know bananas don't grow in supermarkets but the carnage was terrible. Nearly always they rear-ended another truck, or pulled out unexpectedly or drove too fast for conditions.

 

[StuBeeDoo]

lorry racing! ............. artics taking 3 miles to overtake another one and holding up a huge queue.

These "rolling roadblocks" boil my water big-style.

I would say that there should be a law against it, but there aren't enough traffic Police as it is so if there was such a law it would be about as effective as the 6 points/£200 fine mobile law.

Around here, there are a couple of sections of the A1 with signage warning that HGVs are not permitted to overtake at certain times of the day. The local pikeys might as well come and nick the signs and posts for scrap, for what notice the HGV drivers take of them.

Never a Policeman when you need one.

 

[Dopamine]

Whilst I wait for Scalextric's abysmally slow web server to do its stuff so I can look at this year's range announcement, I'll attempt your quiz. Is it multiple choice?

Why on earth do they do it?

• Amusement.
• They've grown tired of waving back at the illegal stowaways poking their heads out of the rear doors of the leading truck.

If there is only a speed differential of 1mph what is there to gain in overall journey time?

One minute per hour.

So for a five hour journey, just imagine how useful that saved five minutes would be. You could read SlotForum, eat a Yorkie, or wait five minutes for Scalextric's abysmally slow web server to do its stuff...

 

[gus3049]

I'm not one to mock people's lifestyle choices. Especially regarding food. I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance twenty years ago when in hospital with yet another stomach problem. But I am used to being mocked.

I admitted before that I read the Daily Mail as well as the Grauniad and BBC. There is an article about a recent convert to veganism who was served Ice Cream and complained that it was dairy

If it ain't dairy, it ain't Ice Cream. The clue may be in the expression 'CREAM' Why on earth are there all these fakes? Greggs do not do a Vegan sausage roll, it's a Quorn filled pastry. Except it probably isn't pastry!!

You can't have vegan meat. Or anything else that is a copy of a non vegan dish.

Call it something else you wallies and you can't be mislead. Have your own diets and stop trying to copy one you describe as hateful

It's all trying to be trendy like what I've been for twenty years!

 

[RikoRocket]

I caught a programme a couple of days ago with a Vegan chef making a full English breakfast, complete with scrambled eggs (but no eggs) - just plain barmy IMHO

 

[CMOTD]

I have often wondered why Vegetarians buy fake meat products such as veggie sausages. If they don't want to eat the real thing why buy an imitation? I once considered the veggie thing but concluded that life really wouldn't be worth living without bacon sandwiches.

 

[gus3049]

Yup,

You'd think they would want to get away from the imagery that the meaty names conjour!

Be original!