"Are you about to buy a new car? Do you know whether it's been stolen, involved in an accident or - gulp - has ever been owned by Kerry Katona? Well now you can, simply by texting this number, at which point we'll charge you £15 to tell you"
OK, that isn't a verbatim account of these kinds of adverts, but you get my drift. For the avid viewer of Top Gear on Dave, such adverts are your staple diet until the next chapter of pre-staged spontaneity from 3 middle-aged men.
Apparently, these companies can tell you whether your car is a cut-and-shut, whether the mileage is accurate or whether it has ever been used to mow down a crowd of nuns at a Sting concert. There is, however, a slight loophole in this argument:
Who's telling them this information?
Let me paint you a picture; a less than reputable car dealer regularly reduces the mileage on his cars to increase their value. He might even say 'Lovely jubbly'. Once the illegal act is done, he gets on the blower to this company to give them a full and frank account of which cars he has altered, so future owners will be able to find out.
Well of course he doesn't, you dick. So how do they find out?
It seems to me the only way this information could ever enter the public domain is when the cops get involved, either by running checks on the roadside or busting dodgy car dealers. But surely, when they discover this information, they don't just wave the owner on their way? No, they impound the car and launch an investigation. Granted, it must be like trying to find a needle in a haystack when they try to track down the ne'er-do-wells who instigated the crime, but I'd be surprised if the car was allowed back on the road.
Maybe I'm doing the Feds a disservice; maybe the cops are given tip-offs about dodgy motors but due to the dealers being slippery customers, not to mention a crippling lack of police resources, they don't have the time to recover every vehicle. In that case, why do they give this information to some slimy company to charge us serfs for the pleasure of knowing how hooky our car is? Why don't they just publish the registration plates of the death traps on some kind of Internet-based site?
Then again, they might have some kind of back-alley deal to pass this info on for a reasonable fee. They've got to pay for the Christmas party champers somehow.
What next? Some low-life pulls you in a pub, you can text their description to a number and a run-down of their previous convictions, STD's and/or propensity to employ rough-housing in the bedroom is returned? Actually, that's not a bad idea...
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Thursday 21 January 2010
Touchy subject alert
For the first time that I can remember, I actually thought twice about writing this blog, mainly because the content might be viewed as controversial to some people. Then I thought "It's my blog, I'll write what I want". So I did.
This earthquake in Haiti is pretty bad. Now I've got my entry for Understatement of the Year out of the way, I can concentrate on the terrible goings on in one of the poorest nations in the world. Last week, a decent-sized quake more or less razed the capital leaving estimated thousands of people dead and many more homeless and/or injured.
Usually, when Peter Sissions says "Some viewers may find some parts of the next report disturbing" I tend to find said footage pretty lame. Yes, people are injured and crying and what have you, but it's all too easy to detach yourself from it when it doesn't affect you in a day-to-day context. The Haiti coverage however has actually had me feeling bad for the poor bastards stuck in what seems like a living hell. The number of little kids killed can't fail to have an impact, and once I've got the details squared up I'll be making a donation. It literally is the least I can do.
Of course, this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't court a bit of controversy.
Last night I found myself shouting at one of the medical volunteers for moaning.
It started with some dramatic footage of a woman about to give birth. Given the utter knackeredness of the hospital, the maternity ward had actually been set up in the street, and this poor cow was about to deliver a nipper in the middle of the road. Being sensitive to the privacy of the woman, the cameraman shot over and starting getting a right eyeful, to the point that they had to pixelate her bits. In amongst this, there were anguished cries. However, expecting it to be the mother, I was surprised to discover it was actually an American volunteer nurse who was screeching. Apparently it was a breached birth (nope, me neither) and she was squawking about how she couldn't do a breached birth in these conditions, with her voice audibly filling up with tears.
"Hang on a minute", thunk I, "Isn't it your job to do this kind of thing? Yes, the conditions aren't exactly A1, but the entire city's fallen down. And lest we forget that you actually chose to do this. What did you expect to find - The Ritz?"
Now, not for a second am I decrying the obvious emotional trauma these heroic volunteers must be going through, but it is my belief that the type of people who volunteer to do this must be of sufficient mettle to cope with it. Fair enough, feel a bit sad when you first see the devastation but keep it to yourself and do the job you're not being paid to do. You're not helping anybody by carping on when the shit's hitting the fan, especially when you're surrounded by people who have lost life and limb in the last few days and are currently starving to death. By all means flip out when you're on your own, but right now these people need you to man up and sort this shit out because they don't have the tools or the skills to do it themselves.
A bit later she was back, bemoaning the fact that the only thing she had to cut an umbilical cord was an unsterilised knife. Fair enough, that's terrible, but the powers that be aren't doing it on purpose to make it more interesting. It's been widely reported that planes are being turned away because the airport is full of aid which they can't get off the apron because there's precious little fuel about to power the lorries. They're doing the best they can so you'll just have to hang on, and if you can't hang on, use the bloody knife.
As I said, I feel nothing but admiration and respect towards these people, but like all walks of life, it's the minority who spoil it for everybody else. If you don't like it, go home. At least you've got one to go to...
This earthquake in Haiti is pretty bad. Now I've got my entry for Understatement of the Year out of the way, I can concentrate on the terrible goings on in one of the poorest nations in the world. Last week, a decent-sized quake more or less razed the capital leaving estimated thousands of people dead and many more homeless and/or injured.
Usually, when Peter Sissions says "Some viewers may find some parts of the next report disturbing" I tend to find said footage pretty lame. Yes, people are injured and crying and what have you, but it's all too easy to detach yourself from it when it doesn't affect you in a day-to-day context. The Haiti coverage however has actually had me feeling bad for the poor bastards stuck in what seems like a living hell. The number of little kids killed can't fail to have an impact, and once I've got the details squared up I'll be making a donation. It literally is the least I can do.
Of course, this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't court a bit of controversy.
Last night I found myself shouting at one of the medical volunteers for moaning.
It started with some dramatic footage of a woman about to give birth. Given the utter knackeredness of the hospital, the maternity ward had actually been set up in the street, and this poor cow was about to deliver a nipper in the middle of the road. Being sensitive to the privacy of the woman, the cameraman shot over and starting getting a right eyeful, to the point that they had to pixelate her bits. In amongst this, there were anguished cries. However, expecting it to be the mother, I was surprised to discover it was actually an American volunteer nurse who was screeching. Apparently it was a breached birth (nope, me neither) and she was squawking about how she couldn't do a breached birth in these conditions, with her voice audibly filling up with tears.
"Hang on a minute", thunk I, "Isn't it your job to do this kind of thing? Yes, the conditions aren't exactly A1, but the entire city's fallen down. And lest we forget that you actually chose to do this. What did you expect to find - The Ritz?"
Now, not for a second am I decrying the obvious emotional trauma these heroic volunteers must be going through, but it is my belief that the type of people who volunteer to do this must be of sufficient mettle to cope with it. Fair enough, feel a bit sad when you first see the devastation but keep it to yourself and do the job you're not being paid to do. You're not helping anybody by carping on when the shit's hitting the fan, especially when you're surrounded by people who have lost life and limb in the last few days and are currently starving to death. By all means flip out when you're on your own, but right now these people need you to man up and sort this shit out because they don't have the tools or the skills to do it themselves.
A bit later she was back, bemoaning the fact that the only thing she had to cut an umbilical cord was an unsterilised knife. Fair enough, that's terrible, but the powers that be aren't doing it on purpose to make it more interesting. It's been widely reported that planes are being turned away because the airport is full of aid which they can't get off the apron because there's precious little fuel about to power the lorries. They're doing the best they can so you'll just have to hang on, and if you can't hang on, use the bloody knife.
As I said, I feel nothing but admiration and respect towards these people, but like all walks of life, it's the minority who spoil it for everybody else. If you don't like it, go home. At least you've got one to go to...
Monday 18 January 2010
FaceBook: It must be me
If someone came up to you and said "You know what I like? I like Anchorman and The Stig and Tobey Maguire and Swindon Town" you'd do one of 3 three things:
1) Punch them full in the face
2) Raise a quizzical eyebrow and question their mental integrity
3) Run away
In addition, if said person then started reeling off a list of everybody they were friends with, regardless of whether they could corroborate that fact or not, you'd be inclined to say "Look mate, I don't know who you are or why you're in my bathroom, but do one before I call the Feds", or something similar depending on your geographical location.
All of which makes me wonder why FaceBook is so popular.
FaceBook is a website on that Internet, and it appears to be a repository for people to tell us what they like, who they know and what they're doing in excruciatingly minute detail. Now I know you can find all manner of material and niche websites on the Internet pertaining to just about any fantasy, perversion or lust you may have, but I'm yet to find anything as pretentious and utterly pointless as FaceBook. Presumably somebody must care that a friend of a friend of a colleague's sister has a hangover, otherwise why would such a medium exist?
Back in the early days of MySpace, I had a page (the very page which launched my glittering blogging career, in fact) which I used purely as a soapbox to have a right old e-whinge. I set the background to be lime green, stuck 'Popcorn' by Hot Butter on as my signature tune and left it at that. It was purely a way of contacting friends who didn't answer their telephone or texts, and for the aforementioned blogs. However, after 18 months I realised it was completely pointless maintaining it, not least because I saw the very people who visited the page on a regular basis, meaning I was effectively repeating everything I had done when I next saw them. What a waste of valuable pornography storage space that was.
I must confess that I'm the least knowledgeable FaceBook user in the world, simply because my entire experience of it is via the Mrs' page, but all it seems to be is a series of arms-length face shots depicting the page owner in the best possible aesthetic light, then a series of their various likes and dislikes, a battery of ill-lit photographs showing them partying in the grim little backwater in which they reside and a catalogue of every person who has ever conversed with them on any level whatsoever.
I can see the benefit of locating old schoolfriends or checking how fat your exes are now, but once you've contacted someone again, you swap phone numbers and/or addresses and it's job done. You don't keep them on permanent record as someone you know. I’ve got nothing against regular FaceBook users (just as well really – there’s about a billion of them) but there must come a point when they wonder whether people give a shit that it’s ‘pie and mash for tea – again’. If not, then kudos for having the energy and time to update people on your gastronomic habits, but when someone with better things to do with their time (Mario Kart for a kick-off) questions how you’ve managed to accrue 225 friends despite being a complete tosser, don’t come running to me.
1) Punch them full in the face
2) Raise a quizzical eyebrow and question their mental integrity
3) Run away
In addition, if said person then started reeling off a list of everybody they were friends with, regardless of whether they could corroborate that fact or not, you'd be inclined to say "Look mate, I don't know who you are or why you're in my bathroom, but do one before I call the Feds", or something similar depending on your geographical location.
All of which makes me wonder why FaceBook is so popular.
FaceBook is a website on that Internet, and it appears to be a repository for people to tell us what they like, who they know and what they're doing in excruciatingly minute detail. Now I know you can find all manner of material and niche websites on the Internet pertaining to just about any fantasy, perversion or lust you may have, but I'm yet to find anything as pretentious and utterly pointless as FaceBook. Presumably somebody must care that a friend of a friend of a colleague's sister has a hangover, otherwise why would such a medium exist?
Back in the early days of MySpace, I had a page (the very page which launched my glittering blogging career, in fact) which I used purely as a soapbox to have a right old e-whinge. I set the background to be lime green, stuck 'Popcorn' by Hot Butter on as my signature tune and left it at that. It was purely a way of contacting friends who didn't answer their telephone or texts, and for the aforementioned blogs. However, after 18 months I realised it was completely pointless maintaining it, not least because I saw the very people who visited the page on a regular basis, meaning I was effectively repeating everything I had done when I next saw them. What a waste of valuable pornography storage space that was.
I must confess that I'm the least knowledgeable FaceBook user in the world, simply because my entire experience of it is via the Mrs' page, but all it seems to be is a series of arms-length face shots depicting the page owner in the best possible aesthetic light, then a series of their various likes and dislikes, a battery of ill-lit photographs showing them partying in the grim little backwater in which they reside and a catalogue of every person who has ever conversed with them on any level whatsoever.
I can see the benefit of locating old schoolfriends or checking how fat your exes are now, but once you've contacted someone again, you swap phone numbers and/or addresses and it's job done. You don't keep them on permanent record as someone you know. I’ve got nothing against regular FaceBook users (just as well really – there’s about a billion of them) but there must come a point when they wonder whether people give a shit that it’s ‘pie and mash for tea – again’. If not, then kudos for having the energy and time to update people on your gastronomic habits, but when someone with better things to do with their time (Mario Kart for a kick-off) questions how you’ve managed to accrue 225 friends despite being a complete tosser, don’t come running to me.
Thursday 14 January 2010
Wanted: High-powered MILF for shenanigans. Bring £50k
Finding a corrupt politician today is like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel. The expenses 'scandal' (I'll continue to put it in inverted commas because it's not a scandal in the slightest - it's more of a 'piss-take') is the latest example of people in positions of power using their heightened status and connections to feather their next in exactly the same way any right-minded human being would do in the same situation.
The latest example of someone using their power for naughtiness is of course 60-year-old superminx Iris Robinson.
For those of you stuck between the pages of Heat magazine, Mrs. Robinson (a delicious irony) was a politician and is the wife of the Northern Ireland's first minister Peter, to whom she's been married for nearly 40 years.
A couple of weeks ago, a story broke when he popped up on the news looking all sad, saying that she'd been having an affair but that he'd forgiven her (why?) and would be working on patching up his marriage forthwith. A few people went 'Crikey'. I went 'Meh' because political affairs aren't exactly new are they? ARE THEY?
Anyway, the story became juicier when it transpired that the third wheel in this marriage was a 19-year-old lad, who she'd apparently known since he was nine and, when his father died, vowed to look after him. She's a woman of her word, that's for sure. Into the bargain, she got her hands on 50 large to help him start a catering business, and not to put too fine a point on it, the shit hit the PR fan. Big time.
We've had all manner of developments since then; she's apparently gone mad and is having 'acute psychological treatment', poor old Pete's had to step down from his post to clear his name (apparently he knew all about the cafe money and is trying to prove otherwise) and understandably she's given the old politicianing lark the elbow. Every day there seems to be a new revelation about her, as it becomes more and more clearly that she hasn't exactly been honest with her hubby and the general public in recent times.
Now, when I was a younger man, the thought of a glamorous older woman seducing me was quality. I can't speak for all of my friends, but if some 40+ young-at-heart cougar with the majority of her own teeth and/or hair wanted to educate me in the art of the woman then that would've been AOK by me. Furthermore, if she was prepared to chuck £50k into the bargain to help me start a company then quite frankly, we're talking happy days.
Alas, a combination of a side-parting and my Mum's mates being minging put paid to that idea. If I was to be a toy boy these days, I'd have to have a cemetery on speed dial, just in case.
In conclusion, if your own Mrs. Robinson straddles a movie camera and tries to seduce you, help yourself. However, it might be worth making sure she’s not married to the most powerful man in the country first. And if she offers you money but asks you if you want to ‘make a deposit’, suspect the worst.
The latest example of someone using their power for naughtiness is of course 60-year-old superminx Iris Robinson.
For those of you stuck between the pages of Heat magazine, Mrs. Robinson (a delicious irony) was a politician and is the wife of the Northern Ireland's first minister Peter, to whom she's been married for nearly 40 years.
A couple of weeks ago, a story broke when he popped up on the news looking all sad, saying that she'd been having an affair but that he'd forgiven her (why?) and would be working on patching up his marriage forthwith. A few people went 'Crikey'. I went 'Meh' because political affairs aren't exactly new are they? ARE THEY?
Anyway, the story became juicier when it transpired that the third wheel in this marriage was a 19-year-old lad, who she'd apparently known since he was nine and, when his father died, vowed to look after him. She's a woman of her word, that's for sure. Into the bargain, she got her hands on 50 large to help him start a catering business, and not to put too fine a point on it, the shit hit the PR fan. Big time.
We've had all manner of developments since then; she's apparently gone mad and is having 'acute psychological treatment', poor old Pete's had to step down from his post to clear his name (apparently he knew all about the cafe money and is trying to prove otherwise) and understandably she's given the old politicianing lark the elbow. Every day there seems to be a new revelation about her, as it becomes more and more clearly that she hasn't exactly been honest with her hubby and the general public in recent times.
Now, when I was a younger man, the thought of a glamorous older woman seducing me was quality. I can't speak for all of my friends, but if some 40+ young-at-heart cougar with the majority of her own teeth and/or hair wanted to educate me in the art of the woman then that would've been AOK by me. Furthermore, if she was prepared to chuck £50k into the bargain to help me start a company then quite frankly, we're talking happy days.
Alas, a combination of a side-parting and my Mum's mates being minging put paid to that idea. If I was to be a toy boy these days, I'd have to have a cemetery on speed dial, just in case.
In conclusion, if your own Mrs. Robinson straddles a movie camera and tries to seduce you, help yourself. However, it might be worth making sure she’s not married to the most powerful man in the country first. And if she offers you money but asks you if you want to ‘make a deposit’, suspect the worst.
Wednesday 13 January 2010
Holidays: Triffic, Richard
You know you've made it in the blogging world when one of the swollen masses hanging off your every word makes a suggestion for a future blog topic. And by 'suggestion' I mean 'threatened to unsubscribe if I didn't do as I was told'.
So here we are.
Those of you who like this television lark will no doubt by now have come across Thomas Cook's latest offering. They've employed a good-looking bloke from the world of football and his moderately successful singer wife to give us their unique take on the world of foreign holidays.
Sadly, they haven't chosen David 'Goldenlegs' Beckham and his tubby wife, Victoria. Instead they've employed...wait for it....snigger...only the Redknapps!
That's right; they've forked out good money to hear the inane ramblings of Jamie "I sit like I'm having a shit, triffic" Redknapp and his wife, Louise Nurding (I refuse to acknowledge their marriage, much in the same way as you-would-although-she's-a-racist-skank Cheryl Tweedy).
The premise is simple (ironically); they wander about various sun-drenched resorts, sporting fewer and fewer clothes as they progress, spouting nonsensical statements that would make Steven Seagal's script writer blush. It's toe-curling stuff (cringeworthy, not orgasm-inducing), as they stare into each others eyes going "We'll never forget it" and other sentiment-laden twaddle designed to make the social underclass of this great nation say "I tell you what, Dean - we should go on an 'oliday like them Redknapps. Fook the mortgage, it'll be a rart laff". Or similar.
I'm all for celebrities promoting products. Sutcliffe's endorsement of Facebook was an unmitigated success; likewise Glitter's Toys R Us campaign. It goes to show that if you get the right celebrity mug behind your product, the results are literally* mind-blowing. Which makes TC's choice of Mr & Mrs Redders more baffling. Here we have an impossibly good-looking couple (worryingly bereft of their children, it has to be said) sauntering around like they've got all the time in the world. That's cos they have. She does the Clothes Show once in a blue moon (and probably Loose Women - every other harridan of a certain age does), while he rocks up for a couple of hours on a Sunday, suffixes everything with 'Triffic' or 'Richard' then fucks off with several thousand quid in his sky rocket. It's easy to flounce about in these high-class resorts when you're wadded and do less work than a teacher in a snowstorm.
Not for a minute am I begrudging them their rewards. Let's face it, if Ronseal called and asked you and your bird to front their latest range of weedkillers on the Costa Del Sol, you'd be all over it. I'm just surprised they've chosen a couple so banal and non-threatening they make Mr. and Mrs. Michael Owen look like MTV fly-on-the-wall documentary fodder.
In conclusion, in these financially buggered times, advertisers are under more pressure than ever to make every marketing pound count. To that end, following these industry-standard rules should ensure a safe voyage through the choppy waters of product promotion:
- Employ Kerry Katona to front your campaign
That is all.
* Before any pedants point out that it isn't 'literally' mind-blowing, this is a deliberate dig at Redknapp's propensity to use the word in the wrong context constantly. "He's literally been on fire in the first half, Jeff", etc. He is to the English language what Piers Morgan is to light entertainment.
So here we are.
Those of you who like this television lark will no doubt by now have come across Thomas Cook's latest offering. They've employed a good-looking bloke from the world of football and his moderately successful singer wife to give us their unique take on the world of foreign holidays.
Sadly, they haven't chosen David 'Goldenlegs' Beckham and his tubby wife, Victoria. Instead they've employed...wait for it....snigger...only the Redknapps!
That's right; they've forked out good money to hear the inane ramblings of Jamie "I sit like I'm having a shit, triffic" Redknapp and his wife, Louise Nurding (I refuse to acknowledge their marriage, much in the same way as you-would-although-she's-a-racist-skank Cheryl Tweedy).
The premise is simple (ironically); they wander about various sun-drenched resorts, sporting fewer and fewer clothes as they progress, spouting nonsensical statements that would make Steven Seagal's script writer blush. It's toe-curling stuff (cringeworthy, not orgasm-inducing), as they stare into each others eyes going "We'll never forget it" and other sentiment-laden twaddle designed to make the social underclass of this great nation say "I tell you what, Dean - we should go on an 'oliday like them Redknapps. Fook the mortgage, it'll be a rart laff". Or similar.
I'm all for celebrities promoting products. Sutcliffe's endorsement of Facebook was an unmitigated success; likewise Glitter's Toys R Us campaign. It goes to show that if you get the right celebrity mug behind your product, the results are literally* mind-blowing. Which makes TC's choice of Mr & Mrs Redders more baffling. Here we have an impossibly good-looking couple (worryingly bereft of their children, it has to be said) sauntering around like they've got all the time in the world. That's cos they have. She does the Clothes Show once in a blue moon (and probably Loose Women - every other harridan of a certain age does), while he rocks up for a couple of hours on a Sunday, suffixes everything with 'Triffic' or 'Richard' then fucks off with several thousand quid in his sky rocket. It's easy to flounce about in these high-class resorts when you're wadded and do less work than a teacher in a snowstorm.
Not for a minute am I begrudging them their rewards. Let's face it, if Ronseal called and asked you and your bird to front their latest range of weedkillers on the Costa Del Sol, you'd be all over it. I'm just surprised they've chosen a couple so banal and non-threatening they make Mr. and Mrs. Michael Owen look like MTV fly-on-the-wall documentary fodder.
In conclusion, in these financially buggered times, advertisers are under more pressure than ever to make every marketing pound count. To that end, following these industry-standard rules should ensure a safe voyage through the choppy waters of product promotion:
- Employ Kerry Katona to front your campaign
That is all.
* Before any pedants point out that it isn't 'literally' mind-blowing, this is a deliberate dig at Redknapp's propensity to use the word in the wrong context constantly. "He's literally been on fire in the first half, Jeff", etc. He is to the English language what Piers Morgan is to light entertainment.
Monday 11 January 2010
The customer is always...in the way
As is the norm for the likes of me, I do a weekly big shop at a local supermarket. Depending on my mood, I either go to Tesco's (quick and cheap but the key protagonists are lazy-eyed poorly-cleansed genetic mishaps) or Asda (quick and cheap but full of people deemed "too council" for Jeremy Kyle) and fill up on all manner of own-brand fayre, all in the name of not dying.
Given the ongoing treacherous weather conditions we're currently facing, I found Asda to be surprisingly empty. I flew round the store without needing to utter a single profanity towards a member of the moronic underclass who thinks it's acceptable to leave their trolley straddling a lane while they piss off to find the Chicken Dippers. Having gathered my wares, I made my way to the tills and wandered straight into a free aisle, beginning to unload my stuff.
Alas, I was unaware that I wasn't supposed to disturb the staff by wanting to actually buy something.
Given the lack of customers, both the till I was at and the adjacent one were customer free (apart from me, obviously). Thinking this was a boon, my mood dropped slightly when I realised that not only did the two cashiers intend on holding a conversation throughout my entire transaction, but that they would also carry it out across me, as if I'd had the ignorant audacity to get in their way.
The rigmarole is standard; they say hello, offer you some carrier bags (go on then), offer to help pack (no ta), scan your stuff, give you the total, ask if you want cash back (no ta), you pay and you fuck off. However, given the in-depth nature of the feckless conversation these two imbeciles were engrossed in, I found myself practically offering her lines, as if we were both players in a stage production of "Asda: The Musical!", and she was struggling with the script. Admittedly the whole process took the usual couple of minutes, but the whole thing could've been a lot quicker if she's said "Hold on a minute, Trace" and actually concentrated on the job in hand.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually arsed about a lack of customer service. At the end of the day I got what I wanted so I'm not too fussed. If I was queuing unnecessarily while they wittered on it might be different, but is it too much to ask that they shut up for two minutes and pay attention? Both before and after my presence there was a distinct lack of other customers, so it wouldn't have killed them. I tried to make my presence felt by making honking noises while gesturing at her breasts*, but she was having none of it.
So beware, potential shoppers. Don't make the same mistake I did and disturb two granite-faced battleaxes in full conversational flow. Put your stuff back in your basket and piss off out of it until they're ready to serve you. Who do you think you are?
* Not really. That would be ridiculous. It was more of a toot than a honk.
Given the ongoing treacherous weather conditions we're currently facing, I found Asda to be surprisingly empty. I flew round the store without needing to utter a single profanity towards a member of the moronic underclass who thinks it's acceptable to leave their trolley straddling a lane while they piss off to find the Chicken Dippers. Having gathered my wares, I made my way to the tills and wandered straight into a free aisle, beginning to unload my stuff.
Alas, I was unaware that I wasn't supposed to disturb the staff by wanting to actually buy something.
Given the lack of customers, both the till I was at and the adjacent one were customer free (apart from me, obviously). Thinking this was a boon, my mood dropped slightly when I realised that not only did the two cashiers intend on holding a conversation throughout my entire transaction, but that they would also carry it out across me, as if I'd had the ignorant audacity to get in their way.
The rigmarole is standard; they say hello, offer you some carrier bags (go on then), offer to help pack (no ta), scan your stuff, give you the total, ask if you want cash back (no ta), you pay and you fuck off. However, given the in-depth nature of the feckless conversation these two imbeciles were engrossed in, I found myself practically offering her lines, as if we were both players in a stage production of "Asda: The Musical!", and she was struggling with the script. Admittedly the whole process took the usual couple of minutes, but the whole thing could've been a lot quicker if she's said "Hold on a minute, Trace" and actually concentrated on the job in hand.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually arsed about a lack of customer service. At the end of the day I got what I wanted so I'm not too fussed. If I was queuing unnecessarily while they wittered on it might be different, but is it too much to ask that they shut up for two minutes and pay attention? Both before and after my presence there was a distinct lack of other customers, so it wouldn't have killed them. I tried to make my presence felt by making honking noises while gesturing at her breasts*, but she was having none of it.
So beware, potential shoppers. Don't make the same mistake I did and disturb two granite-faced battleaxes in full conversational flow. Put your stuff back in your basket and piss off out of it until they're ready to serve you. Who do you think you are?
* Not really. That would be ridiculous. It was more of a toot than a honk.
Wednesday 6 January 2010
Crymewotch
I frequent a perfectly adequate petrol station a couple of times a week on my way home. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that I used it to purchase more fuel for my car, plus the occasional impulse purchase of a cola-based drink, some kind of jelly sweets or the cheapest brand of Merlot available at the time. That's all you really need to know.
Anyway, an ongoing theme at this place is the penchant for the owner to print pictures of fuel thieves ('bilkers', for those who watch TV's Traffic Cops), along with name-calling and general abuse at their expense. I find it very amusing, not least because the word 'allegedly' is always included in a tiny font somewhere on the page to keep things above board legally.
The formula is standard; a still from the CCTV footage of the tea leaf (usually a chap), which is then embellished with digs at the protagonist's taste in clothing, a mention of the amount they stole and copious use of the asterisk to blank out the author's true feelings on the miscreant. I think it's a good idea, not least because it highlights the baddie to the general public and drags their name through the mud.
There is another reason that I enjoy these regular dips into the fuel-pinching underworld, however. The quality of the spelling is monumentally awful.
Case in point: the latest entry should say "Thieving chav b*s*a*d", but actually says "Thieve chave b*s*a*d". Without a hint of irony, the writer has successfully replaced letters in the word 'bastard' so it still makes sense, but spelt every other word incorrectly. Don't get me wrong, the point was made (complete with something like 18,000 exclamation marks to ram the point home) but the poor bugger makes himself look like a bit of a gimp with his basic lack of spelling nous.
Literally every one is in some way appallingly written, which unerringly lends to its charm. I think the next time I'm in I might pull him to one side and give him a bit of spelling and grammar advice. There's no way that would go wrong.
I can see the next issue now; a snap of me on the forecourt above the headline "Patrunisin cnut baned from this stashion".
It's not the worst thing I've been called. This year...
Anyway, an ongoing theme at this place is the penchant for the owner to print pictures of fuel thieves ('bilkers', for those who watch TV's Traffic Cops), along with name-calling and general abuse at their expense. I find it very amusing, not least because the word 'allegedly' is always included in a tiny font somewhere on the page to keep things above board legally.
The formula is standard; a still from the CCTV footage of the tea leaf (usually a chap), which is then embellished with digs at the protagonist's taste in clothing, a mention of the amount they stole and copious use of the asterisk to blank out the author's true feelings on the miscreant. I think it's a good idea, not least because it highlights the baddie to the general public and drags their name through the mud.
There is another reason that I enjoy these regular dips into the fuel-pinching underworld, however. The quality of the spelling is monumentally awful.
Case in point: the latest entry should say "Thieving chav b*s*a*d", but actually says "Thieve chave b*s*a*d". Without a hint of irony, the writer has successfully replaced letters in the word 'bastard' so it still makes sense, but spelt every other word incorrectly. Don't get me wrong, the point was made (complete with something like 18,000 exclamation marks to ram the point home) but the poor bugger makes himself look like a bit of a gimp with his basic lack of spelling nous.
Literally every one is in some way appallingly written, which unerringly lends to its charm. I think the next time I'm in I might pull him to one side and give him a bit of spelling and grammar advice. There's no way that would go wrong.
I can see the next issue now; a snap of me on the forecourt above the headline "Patrunisin cnut baned from this stashion".
It's not the worst thing I've been called. This year...
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