Banks. Meh
I am sure that getting into the Egyptian Underworld, and past Ma’at is easier than getting to speak to a human at your bank.
Dial Bank. Get to spend quality time with a computer who asks you for your account number, and sort code. You type it into your telephone keypad. Alls good. Now you traverse a seemingly endless choice of button presses.
Your now on your way to speak to a human. Oh No! “All our customer reps are busy dealing with other callers at the moment, please hold” is repeated ad nauseum between breaks of some really bad music.
At last a human voice. Who asks you for your account number and sort code AGAIN! Oh well. Given the information requested. Then they ask a seemingly endless list of security questions.
“Your full name?”
“First line of your address and Postcode?”
“2nd 5th letters of your password?”
“Colour underpants your wore when you created the account?”
By this point you’ve forgotten why you rang them in the first place. But whats even more funny is when they ring you, and ask you the security questions. Well the other day, sick of these calls I simply refused to answer them, on the basis I could not assume it was the bank…The guy at the other end of the phone didn’t quite know what to make of it, and simply hung up the phone.
I dislike banks, I think they are simply out to make as much money as they possibly can, they know they have you over a barrel and always will, therefore they are free to do as they please with relative impunity.
At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask when he robbed you.
Leeds
My time in Leeds has reminded me how much I dislike Cities, and those that inhabit them.
Everyone rushes round, a city is the noisiest and yet the quietest place ever. No one talks to each other, just running round taking their place in the rat race they are in.
I stand in the station, awaiting my train home, it pulls into the station, packed with people on their wayto work. The doors open and they spew onto the station in determined silence. Not a word utterd. On the way home everyone sits in determined silence. No matter what happens. The only conversation you hear is that of the Conductor walking along the train asking for tickets and passes.
I say good morning to the occasional person when I am stood outside the Hotel in a morning. They look at me as if I am from another world. Unsure on how to respond, they mutter hello and a forced smile. And they are gone. Into the city.
Just stop awhile and communicate with your fellow Humans.
And then the “Night Crowd”. People who have had way to much alcohol, people who just are out looking for a bit of a scrap, or are willing to sink a knife into people, or complain and not really understand what they are talking about. I dont understand it. Saturday night saw a young girl slumped by the bin, completely out of her skull. If her friends had not stayed to help her, no doubt the best thing that would have happened is an Ambulance come and carted her away. People walking, this time bumping into people, wandering into traffic and falling over in various places.
I respect the Police force for having the patience in dealing with these people, and indeed those within all the Emergency services, especially the Doctors and Nurses who are swamped with alcohol related incidents. I doubt I would have the patience to deal with them. I have done it, I worked on the Taxi Marshall service in Bath, the first city to use Taxi Marshalls and while Bath was certainly not a bad city, it had its fair share of problems on a Night. But nothing compared to the rancid cesspit that is Bristol.
I think I am well and truly a Town and Country person.
Mouthy little git gets taught a lesson
Funnier than i can explain. The young kid goes all aggro on the 67 year old. He moves away,and then the 67 year old goes all Chuck Norris…….
Incompetent idiots
I got a phone call at 16:01 asking me if I could come to work early. I agreed on the basis that I would then leave early.
Because I was leaving early, I took the car, which in normal circumstances I can’t, as my other half needs it to get to work.
I get into work to find that they have asked another member of Night staff to come in early, phoned him at 1730, again with the promise of him leaving early. So that means I cant go early. No one thought of ringing me and mentioning this. I now have to drive all the way home, to take the car back, get on a train and come to work again. Holy mother of god, how hard is it to be a little organised?
I am really pissed off right now.
I cant be botherd
Personel have just sent me a email, they want to arrange a exit interview. After they kept me waiting for over a hour and a half for my initial interview I am in no hurry to reply. I’m still waiting for confirmation of my resignation, some week and a half later.
In all honesty I feel that exit interviews are a waste of time at the best of times anyway. Uniform orders never get fulfilled, fire training is non existent, even after the GM explicitly told them it was unacceptable that non of the senior management had ever had fire training. I really had hoped that since paramount hotels died and QHotels raised from the ashes things would be better. Obviously not.
We recently had 21 members of staff stay from another hotel, they were known trouble, after misbehaving here, and at the midland. Where they told no, you can’t stay after last time? Nope, come on in and pay your £20 each. Well after complaints they were all spoken to, then they started running round the hotel, screaming and messing about with firefighting equipment. I came to work and got the full horror story. Of course it was embellished and inflated as these people like a little drama.
The staff came back after a night out on the town, and where as good as gold. I think they knew better than to mess with the nightstaff, as we don’t play by the normal rules. 
Next day I came into work, and was immediately told how they had caused so many complaints at breakfast, by screaming at each other, and throwing food about. How much this was due to Chinese whispers and my colleagues need for drama I am not sure, but it is sure as hell funny.
To quote that New Labour phrase “Things can only get better” like aliens are coming
New kit required
Just perusing the wonderful world of gear and there are a couple of bits that I want. And they are:
A montane featherlite smock
After my rather breezy trip on the moor, I looked at some windproof gear as the wind chilled me slightly. Not uncomfortably so, but enough to notice. The montane is incredibly light and quite shower proof. It has some good reviews as well on outdoorsmagic. I already do have a windproof fleece, but would like the smock as it gives a little more flexibility to layering. There is also the Litespeed, which from what I can tell is the featherlite, with a hood and a full length zip.
Cook bags. Small bags designed by Bob at backpackinglight.co.uk. They take your pot, gas and other bits in a fitted bag. At the moment all my cooking stuff is just dumped into a stuff sack. Of course this is not the best idea. I’m also looking at the Honey Stove, for no apparent reason other than I want one.
And I desperately need a new pair of boots. The brashers I have are good boots, but can be uncomfortable after a few miles. I bought them in a sale a few years ago and in my rushed state just bought and went. I know now that buying boots is a little more complicated. I will spend a bit more time choosing a pair. In a way boots are the most important item you buy.
And of course, I still need to get a new pair of waterproof trousers. I looked at the Rab Bergen Pants, and they are all to long for my little legs. Berghaus do their Paclite in a shorter leg, which would work well for me. But it really is a tossup between the two. On my visit for boot fitting I might very well get a pair based on how they feel.
At least now I don’t have to shell out for a new GPS unit after finding mine on a gatepost in a field where I had left it the day before. Thankfully it was a quiet not often used path so it sat there all night until I retrieved it. But it did teach me to be more careful in future. Just as I found it a group of sunday ramblers where coming in the other direction, it had just gone 7am, and it was bloody freezing. What is it with these people making so much noise? They were shouting to each other, maybe 20 yards apart. God I hate people who can’t appreciate the quiet.
Even when you pass a group all close, they are so loud. It’s like the volume goes up, exponentially with the number of people in the group. Each increasing in volume to make themselves heard. Wildlife must run away some 2 miles in each direction when these noise making machines are coming.
Sorry, rant off
ITV News
Is it just me, or is ITV’s current financial troubles really starting to show? With the lack of advertising revenue, and slumping viewing figures.
I have always considered ITV to be the lesser of the TV channels, the common mans TV channel. However, the latest plans quite concern me.
According to a BBC News item, ITV are planning to get rid of local news, and replace it with Media company’s who will independently report the news.
Companys currently bidding for these rights are not surprisingly the big media companies, such as Trinity Mirror, DC Thomson etc. Now this is concerning due to the fact that they all have various political views, ideas. How can they keep the news items valid and slant free? Newspaper companies have a habit of creating campaigns, and rallying the public behind them. All to increase their own circulation figures. Would that slip over into the TV broadcasts? Are we suddenly going to start getting lobbying on the Local news? That’s not something I would want to see.
Oh well, I will continue to get the News from the BBC, and the various news agencies provided by the ever excellent Google News.
Oh lord why.
Why have apple made it so hard to move a iTunes libary from PC to a mac or vice versa?
There only way they say it can be done is via writing everything to DVDs. For my libary that would take many many Discs and I really don’t want to sit at the computer feeding it disc after disc.
A little bit of editing of the XML file iTunes loves to spit out however will get your libary over.
But it does not always work. I currently have over a thousand tracks missing from my libary on the mac, but present on the PC. reimporting them may fix it.
But I am certainly not going to lose hundreds of hours of listening and ratings data.
It’s about time Apple changed this. Would make it a dam site easier for people migrating to Apple. After all, you gave us local sharing, give us a migration path!
iTunes 9
Well, it is here. And I am unimpressed.
None of the rumored social aspects are in, they were just that, rumours. Only one of the features that were introduced interests me, the rest is just uneeded bloat.
The one thing, is the changing of smartplaylists. Now you ca essentially have a playlist inside a plalist to give you fine grained control over it.
Now this will maybe help with the “Source Playlist” issue, where you haveseveral playlists all feeding into one.
The other changes, such as iTunes LP interest me about as much as sticking my nuts in a blender, and I dont really care for the light colour scheme. Much preferred the black.
Having more sync options is good to, being able to sync Playlists, and specific Artists is great, good move there. And the coloum browser makes going through my large libary really a lot easier.
The Applcation sorting is good, but to be honest, I only ever move applications around on the screen once in a bluemoon. I put the icons where Iwant them, and dont move them about. So this feature will be used once only by me for each time I reset my iPhone. calling it a killer feature is a little much.
Apple have also admitted there are a number of issues, most notable are some stack buffer and a dodgy recovery mode. A sense of Deja Vue, like smart play lists having random contents when loaded on the iPod, I can remember that issue from a while ago. Looks like they undid their fix now. Same error, no lesson learnt.
The iPhone’s Webkit browser has a memory corruption issue wherein visiting a maliciously crafted website might lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.
AND ISTILL WANT TO HAVE A CHART TYPE PLAYLIST!
Oh well. Win some. Lose some. I’ll use iTunes a little more when I get some time, and write a proper review of it. At the moment, I need to sleep.
FFS
I mean honestly, some people are just Stupid. Take this recent post to the BBC
I have noticed that the BBC News 24 label idents (and others) cause a burn on my television. This can ruin a TV, and as such I will not be watching rolling news channels for any lengths of time in future. Is BBC News going to address this?
Monica Hay, London
Honestly, you stupid, thick idiot. What do you expect. Why are you watching BBC news constantly for anyway? They just rotate the same news over and over again. Unless something happens. And then asking the BBC to do something about it.
I cringe when Points of View comes on the tele, honestly some of the complaints on there are just slap worthy. Do you sit reading the Radio Times, and think, oh a program about cocks, I’ll watch that, then I will have something to complain about. If you dont like what you are seeing, Turn over, switch off or do something else. Or get outraged by reading the Daily Mail. Or something. Just keep your bollocks to yourself.
Jesus, enough already.
Bottled Water – The Biggest scam ever
Some 21 billion litres of bottled water are consumed each year in UK. We pay more for it than we do for a litre of petrol, all of which comes from far afield and undergoes many industrial processes to convert it from crude oil.
Working in a Hotel that sells a hell of a lot of Mineral water, I completly fail to understand why people are so hung up on drinking it. It is actually worse than the tap water. Chemicals leech from the plastic container, High temperatures and sunlight cause bacterial growth. Look at that absoulte farce a few years ago where coca-cola withdrew all sales of its mineral water due to high levels of the carciogen Bromide.
Much of the water, although by no means all, comes from within UK, and its processing, I understand, is restricted to withdrawing it from the ground, in some cases filtering it, and thereafter bottling and transporting it. Lets thing about how much carbon all that puts into the enviroment.
One thing that makes me laugh is when people ask for ice in their preciously pure bottled water. HELLO? The ice is made from tapwater you idiot.
Now, the enviromental impact of bottled water, It is drawn from wherever it is, processed, bottled and transported to its destination, then transported to the shop, bought by you and transported home. Thats a hell of a lot of carbon put into the atmosphere.
On the basis of 21bn litres drunk, each litre in a plastic bottle weighs 1 kilo, some 21m tonnes of weight is being not only transported around the country, but a fair percentage of this is transported from abroad eg France, Italy Portugal, and even, believe it, or not, Fiji! The 21m tonnes is fairly accurate, compensating for the fact that some is shipped in 1.5litre bottles, but some is shipped in glass, as opposed to plastic bottles. I do not have the skills to transpose this into C02 emissions, but it cannot be an insignificant number. Taking the consumption figure of 21bn litres, and allowing for some glass bottles, and bulk for water coolers, it would I imagine be a fair estimate that some 18 billion plastic bottles need to be disposed of. They are as far as I know non-biodegradable.
What an earth are we doing consuming a packaged product, which is already piped to every home and restaurant in the country, in exactly the same way as gas and electricity. We often ask ourselves, what can we do to assist in thee battle against global warming? Here is a start. The production of bottled water has produced one good benefit. Much more water is being drunk which is very healthy and indeed it is carried by very many people and drunk throughout the day. This is a great plus, but there is no reason whatsoever why this could not continue. A container that looks remarkably like a plastic bottle could still be carried. Its contents tap water. Indeed farsighted local authorities would sure put drinking water points around their boroughs, in much the same way as they are beginning to install electrical charging points for electric cars.
I wish I had thought of packaging water, I would be a billionaire by now. Maybe I should start selling air from Wales, hell if people are willing to pay 15000% more for a product they can get for virtually nothing, let them, especially 98% of people cant tell the difference btween tap water and bottled, and most actually preferred the Tap water. In fact, do you know, without doubt, you are drinking mineral water, not just tap water that has been put in a bottle to milk money out of you dumb idiots? Well do ya?
Fuck me, People are stupid. Which is why Evian is Naive spelt backwards.
In
Dam it O2
When the hell are O2 going to get the 3G sorted out? Barely any 3G coverage over the last few days again.
It is getting stupid now. As soon as another mobile phone company start officially supporting iPhones I will be changing. This is just stupid. Without a decent data network, the iPhone is nothing more than a brick with a touchscreen.
Honestly, sort it out.
What a tool..
Just found this blog post, here is a quote:
We will need sign language and small arms fire to protect us from feral locals. I make a note to pack mirrors and strings of wooden beads to trade with. We will be heading to a land where scurvy still kills more people than cancer and where there is no known cure for rickets. In order to eat and secure shelter I may need to offer up a team member for ritual sacrifice.
For a sexually-charged-super-misogynist like me, Harrogate is a barren wilderness devoid of anything shaggable, where flat shoes, reading glasses, halitosis and opaque woolly tights amass on a grand scale. They are the forces of darkness. I must be strong.
He is talking of his HR Conference, here in Harrogate. Did he actually come up, or just making this shite up for attention? I don’t know. But read his blog post, leave a comment, and tell the soft southern gimp that he can stay well south of the M25.
Read it Here
But in all seriousness, it is a sarcastic sahara dry wit site, and actually quite amusing if you read further into the blog. Well worth a mooch round.
iPhones and O2
I recently purchased a iPhone, and I love it to bits. It does everything and anything I ask of it. The User interface is well thought out and Apple standard, and it is a iPod to boot. What I don’t love is O2′s dodgy 3G, network speeds and no working voice or SMS overnight.
The no voice or SMS, was admittedly one night only, and due to network upgrades, but still, no notification, no warnings, nothing.
The 3G however, is just inexcusable. As The Register reports here more than three times in three weeks they have had a catastrophic failure of the data network, but over night I have noticed it can drop six or seven times, and I have to drop back to 2G to get any data at all.
This clearly is’nt acceptable, and O2 are rumored to be loosing their exclusive deal (Also reported here)on the iPhone. T-Mobile has already started giving away iPhones to contract customers, and orange have been seen with deatils. This is not unexpected as both these carriers do supply the iPhone in different countries.Orange were supposed to be stocking the Nokia N97, but have withdrawn it after “High batch failures”. In other words, they crapped out re-writing the firmware again.
If you watch the iPhone adverts on UK television, the O2 in the menubar of the iPhone has gone, along with the “Only on O2″ tagline. It would appear Apple are moving away from their carriers, they are certainly regretting their AT&T deal in the States.
If I can use my iPhone on a different carrier in 3 months, I will be changing. Not only for the reasons above, but due to the shocking customer service I had earlier.
Cheek of people
The one thing that really pisses me off, are those people, to quote a expression throw stones in a greenhouse.
Recently I was told by another manager, that I should be expected to act as a example to staff. By and large I do. However to be told that by someone that so miserably fails to do so is just piss worthy.
For instance the complete disregard for safe working practices, and fire regulations that they are willing to rota one member of nightstaff on the buisiest nights of the week, regualy rotas themselfs off when they know it will be busy, or grief is likly to be coming there way. (such as a overbooking of rooms)
I would suggest that you get your own house in order before you start critising others.
Dam it. O2 data network has crashed again. they really are having some
issues.
lets hope they can get this one sorted out a bit quicker than last
weeks bomb out.
I did actually get a call from O2 about the recent iPhone saga, but
was asleep when they called. they have not rang back since. Oh well it
is sorted now anyway so I’m just going to leave it at that.
All my colleagues are going away tomorrow on some team building
exercise in a forest somewhere. Good luck, rain had been
forcasted. 
I bet they all come back with stinking colds
I really need some sleep, all I did all did is ferry about a minister
from church to church before I could get to bed, a result of which
means I am now super tired.
oh well best get on and do something I suppose.
–
Michael Thompson
http://photography.mthompson.me.uk
The Contining O2 saga
I got another email from 02 support, and once again, they completely missed the point.
“
Good morning Michael
Thanks for emailing us and I’m sorry that you’re getting charged for O2 Web and WiFi Bolt On.
I can imagine how disappointing this can be for you. Don’t worry. I’ll certainly help you with this.
I’ve checked your account for you and I can see that the O2 Web and WiFi Bolt On have been successfully added onto your account on 24 July 2009. I’m pleased to inform you that O2 Web and WiFi Bolt is set up correctly on your account.
As a goodwill gesture I’ve credited your account with the Bolt On charge of £10. You’re current calltime balance is £xxx. A great way to check your balance is by entering *#10# and pressing your send button. Your balance will then be displayed on your screen.
I hope this answers your query about getting charged for O2 Web and WiFi Bolt On.
Have a great day.
Kind regards
Preethy
O2 Customer Service
“
Oh well, at least they made somewhat of a aknowledgement of the issue and credited me with £10.
Their ability to completly get it wrong is amazing.
My response was maybe a little harsh, but by now, I have just had enough of this blatant incompetence.
I give up.
The Web and Wifi was added after a call to customer services, and I
was never being charged for it, infact I never had it in the first
place, which i what I was trying to get you to understand. It was
added on the basis of free for 12 months, in line with your iPhone
deal. Your email support has failed to understand each and every email
I have sent, in quite a spectacular fashion.
Also I am not seeing any credit on my account as of 07:50, but will check later.
But the Web and Wifi is now sorted via Customer Services, and is fine
and dandy. As the support agent said it is now active on the free 12
months via the permission of his line manager.
Even though EMail support is much more convenient for me, I will use
the phone in support should I ever need to contact O2 again, as I have
little or no faith in the email support. Sorry, thats harsh, but after
this, I feel more confident in your Phone Support.
Thank you.
The O2 saga
I took the plunge and purchased a new iPhone 3GS.
I went to the O2 shop here in Harrogate and got the phone. I asked if I could change the number to my existing number. No problem at all, they went through the process and said it would be 24 hours until it completed. Thats fine, can live with that.
By 32 hours later it still had not transferred. So I phoned O2 customer services. “yes, the request is there, give it a few more hours and it should go through” was the response. Well, 15 hours later I phone them again. Only to be told there was nothing in the queue, and no notes to say I had rang earlier. They put the transfer in again. Another 24 hours. Oh well, nothing I can do about that. So I waited, and it did go through.
Now, thats sorted, on to the next issue, the 12 months free web and wifi bolt on, that according to the documentation that comes with the iPhone, all iPhones get. I was a little apprehensive that because I transferred my number, this might not be applicable. So I mailed them to ask.
“Can you confirm that the Web and Wifi bolt on will be available on this account, as I transferred a number I would like to know if this is still available, I have cancelled the Web Bolt on as it is not needed with the web and wifi”
Their response
“Hello Michael
Thanks for emailing us to find out if the O2 Web Bolt On will be transferred to your Pay & Go account.
I’ll be glad to help you.
Michael, I’m pleased to inform you that once the number transfer is done, the O2 Web Bolt On will be automatically transferred to your account. You just need to make a chargeable call to activate the SIM card.
In case if the O2 Web Bolt On isn’t transferred then, please reply to this email and I’ll add it for you.
I hope this resolves your query.
On a separate note Micahel, I’ve some good news for you. I’ve checked your account and can see that you’re eligible to enjoy some free treats from us. With our treats there’s a little something for you to enjoy, month after month.
You can choose one of the below as your treat:
- free voicemail
- 15% off all mobile and fixed lines
- 20% off non-O2 mobile calls
- 1Mb of data
- 20 free picture messages.
To pick your O2 Treat, all you need to do is dial 2211 free from your mobile phone and follow the prompts.
I hope you’ll find this information useful and have a great weekend.
For further details about O2, please visit our online Help Centre at:
http://www.o2.co.uk/help
Kind regards
Sweeta
O2 Customer Service
“
Fantastic, but not really what I asked. So I mailed them back to clarify
“
Good morning Michael
Thanks for replying to Sweeta’s email. I’m sorry my colleague misunderstood your query.
Michael, after the number transfer you can start using your free O2 Web and Wi-Fi Bolt On. You don’t need to Top-Up to activate this Bolt On.
It’s our duty to inform you about any benefits available to you such as treats.
I hope I’ve explained things clearly to you.
“
Yup, it would appear that the free web and wifi is available from that email. Great.
Now they mail me again, this time really being clear
“
Hello Michael
Thank you for emailing us about your recent number transfer.
I’ve made some minor adjustments to the provisioning of your SIM card. It should be recognised by your iPhone in the next few hours.
I’m very sorry this wasn’t done immediately for you.
As your O2 Web Bolt isn’t required with the free O2 Web & WiFi Bolt On your tariff offers, I’m pleased to tell you that I’ve removed this from your account and credited your account balance with £7.50.
Please keep switching your phone on and off over the next few hours until you can connect to the O2 network Michael. You may need to check tat your APN, access point name, is correct once you have connection. Follow the steps below to check this:
“
See that?
“As your O2 Web Bolt isn’t required with the free O2 Web & WiFi Bolt On your tariff offers, I’m pleased to tell you that I’ve removed this from your account and credited your account balance with £7.50.”
That is pretty clear I would say. Hang on. My balance is dropping like a stone. Looks like I am being charged for internet access now, So I phone them. And get told that I dont get the free web and wifi. Hang on, I think it was pretty clear from the emails that they said I would.
And the guy I spoke to said, his manager had authorised him to put the web and wifi on the account. How very nice of him. After he tried selling it for £10 per month.
O2 are a good phone company, (Not looking at their recent data failures) but leave a hell of a lot lacking in Customer Services.
FleaBay
There are a few reasons why I try and stay away from the online tat bazarre that is Ebay.
One of the main reasons is shill bidding. The register recently had a article on this subject.
AndI got the impression that I was recently subject to it. I was bidding on two items from the same seller. I had the highest price for about a week. Then I contacted the seller to ask if he would accept a early finish to the auction. He declined, stating he wanted more for the items. Then as if by magic another bidder came in and made a bid, on both items. That set of bids just upped to the exact amount the seller wanted, and my 0.01 extra bid to win just edged it up. That bidder was never seen again. Was it a shill bid? Possibly. With ebays crap stupid changes to the bidder history I cant see. And I doubt ebay would really be botherd. As higher price sales = more ebay profit.
There are some good chea alternatives to items on fleabay, dont get me wrong, but I will never be as into it as some people I know. However, if Google ever started a online auction site, that I bet I would use. It would sure give EBay a kick in the balls.
Snow again
so the snow is bck in the Harrogate area, and not a inconsidurable amount. Fortunately the council have appeared to learn a lesson from the last time it snowed so heavy, and have all the roads well gritted.
Unfortunately you cant say that about the rest of the country. Planes Trains and automobiles where all hit. Heathrow delays were immense, the railways all but shut down and the main arterial routes around the country where packed.
While snow is falling this country really does slow to a crawl. We just cant cope with it, the first sign of snow, and schools close, people don’t work. I hate to think of the cost of all those missed man hours businesses have clocked up due to the snow, and it will not help the recession, thats a certainty. Continental Europe are laughing at us for not being able to cope. I think its about time we sucked it up and just got on with life, snow or no snow.
