Room 101

[Jan McNulty]

Roadworks have started on the M62 between junctions 12 and 21, converting to "smart motorway". The estimated finish date shown is 2017!

[Jacqueline]

Just up our road yesterday morning, the roadworks mobile turned up. Signs were duly put out, traffic lights set up, then nothing happened. The hi - viz chaps sat in the van with their sandwiches and flasks. The traffic built up waiting for the lights to change, people could not get in or out of their drives and still nothing happened. About midday, everything was packed away and that was it. Perhaps this was a roadworks flash mob.

[2dancersmum]

Hoping ours was just a 1 day event. Caused huge disruption on Monday morning - 7 mile tailbacks most of the day Some poor kids were on the bus well over 2 hours for their journey to school - arrived at 10:30am. Complaints to council - BT ordered to have lights on between 9:30 and 3:30 only and no sign of lights or workmen since (though there is still a very deep hole in the cycle path so they will be back surely)

[MAB]

A year or so ago I got home from work to discover a huge hole had been dug in my road (an A road) and the lights positioned right outside my house, but after having dug the thing they simply went away.  Now the generators that fuel the lights are very noisy and holding up the traffic means the guys with the sound systems that make the house shake, don't just drive past but sit outside waiting for the lights to change.  However it is one thing the otherwise useless council takes seriously and after I  complained the workers returned and eventually finished the work after ten days of seriously disturbed sleep. 

[swanprincess]

The BRB website definitely belongs in room 101!!! I select the ticket, click 'add to basket'. Click on the basket, "Your basket is empty." But.... But I just put a ticket in there! So I press to go back- the seat which I wanted now appears to have been sold- it hasn't, it is in my basket in some mysterious parallel universe. By which time, my laptop decides it has had enough. 'Unable to connect to internet.' grrrrrr!!!!!

 

Edited because the grumpy Emoticon wouldn't work!

Edited September 24, 2014 by swanprincess

[LinMM]

Did you get it in the end?

[Fonty]

The BRB website definitely belongs in room 101!!! I select the ticket, click 'add to basket'. Click on the basket, "Your basket is empty." But.... But I just put a ticket in there! So I press to go back- the seat which I wanted now appears to have been sold- it hasn't, it is in my basket in some mysterious parallel universe. By which time, my laptop decides it has had enough. 'Unable to connect to internet.' grrrrrr!!!!!

 

Edited because the grumpy Emoticon wouldn't work!

 

So annoying when that happens.

 

Even worse when you actually get the ticket you want, then go to pay for it with a credit card, and the credit card company decides it needs extra proof that you are who you say you are.  So you ring the number, prove your identity, and then find whatever it is you wanted....has gone. 

 

[Jan McNulty]

I assume you mean the Birmingham Hippodrome website rather than the BRB company website?  You can't buy tickets on the BRB website although they do provide links to the theatre websites.  I've very occasionally had problems with the Hippo website although usually I have found it fine for booking.

 

Please don't give up - BRB are on top form at the moment! 

[Fonty]

Apologies, I realise I have already ranted on at length on here about credit card companies.  But it keeps on happening to me....

 

[2dancersmum]

I know its annoying with credit card companies but to give them their due mine picked up a few small purchases from a different part of the UK to where I live - £12, then £50, then another £50 - purchases not made by me. They said its quite common for criminals to make a number of smaller purchases - often things like tickets for collection - to check they have a valid card number before going for the big one. I would far rather have companies check it is really me than have to prove it wasn't me afterwards.

[taxi4ballet]

I think I am going to have to put EastEnders into Room 101 - have you seen the latest trailer?

 

Come on scriptwriters, lighten up a bit!

[Jan McNulty]

I love Emmerdale and Coronation Street but I have never watched Eastenders (thank goodness by the sound of it!)

[taxi4ballet]

Doom, gloom and despondency wall-to-wall (and that's on a good day!).

[BristolBillyBob]

All the roadworks posts reminded me of this.

[Jacqueline]

Doom, gloom and despondency wall-to-wall (and that's on a good day!).

I made the mistake of watching Eastenders the other night - there was 'nothing' else on. I lost touch with the show some time ago, when it became relentlessly depressing and shouty, everyone plotting and trying to kill each other. This episode had Sharon - done up for her latest wedding in the style of a fancy toilet roll holder and Phil - the groom arguing about her syphoning off all his money and him having her beaten up. Which came first I am not sure. Might it be a bad idea to get wed or could they possibly live happily ever after? I think we left them deciding to give it a go innit. Then a gun fell out of her bag and into the hands of the Shirlster character. It seems nothing has changed since the show began in 1904.

[alison]

Okay, I know it's a minor issue, but it really annoys me: people who *insist* on tearing off just one banana from a hand of bananas and leaving it in the box at the supermarket  I was in Sainsbury's the other day, and I kid you not, single bananas were strewn across the top of the box.  Look, if you *really* have to have, say, 6 bananas, couldn't you either just find a hand which contains 6, or perhaps even take a hand of 7, and manage to eat the other one at some stage??!!

[Fonty]

That is annoying, isn't it Alison. 

 

Having said that, our local Tesco has started to sell bananas in enormous bunches.  I quite like bananas, but i don't really want to lug home 16 of them at a time.  I'm afraid I do tear them apart, although I try to do it as neatly as possible. 

[taxi4ballet]

I must admit I'm one of those people who takes a large bunch, splits one off and... actually buys the single one! (Unless other people have kindly left a selection of odd ones too choose from, in which case I'll have one of those).

[Jacqueline]

What of those who break off a banana from a bunch and then walk round eating it? Bananas are the first fruit on display in my local supermarket and I have seen this happen. Also people picking out an apple or eating a bunch of grapes. Isn't it theft to eat stuff like this, presumably with no intention of paying for it. What will they do, present the skin/pips/core at the till? Why don't staff intervene? Perhaps they don't want to receive a barrage of abuse. Can't blame them for that. Yesterday I saw a little darling poking her finger through the plastic wrapping on the cherry tomatoes. I suggested to the mother that she might like to stop her child ruining the produce. I was told to mind my own f'ing business!

I don't know if no treats on display at the till makes much difference either, with the number of people I see letting kids open bags of whatever they fancy anytime they fancy it. I feel really old sometimes and wonder what happened to good manners.

[Anjuli_Bai]

Well, I not only feel old, I am old.  I was born old.  

 

I will never buy anything that is stored in a bin with a scooper for the customer to ladle into a bag.  It does have the convenience of allowing one to buy precisely the amount one needs - but after seeing young children play around with the contents - no thanks.

 

Many stores are now using a system where the product (like nuts) are enclosed in a tube which ends in a funnel to which  the customer can affix a bag.  Thus one can buy the amount needed without the product being open to touch.  That is an improvement.

 

But then there was the woman who opened several plastic enclosed boxes of strawberries, picked out the best of each box for "her" box.  She was instructing her grown son to do the same.  

 

I do like that the store (a large supermarket chain) offers to unload my shopping cart at the checkout line and then offers to wheel it out for me and put it into my car trunk/boot - no charge - no tipping allowed.  They will also fetch anything I need which is handy for some of the larger and/or heavier items.  

 

I avoid the supermarket at certain times.  On weekends when the university dorm denizens wake up (about 2 p.m. after a wild "night before") - the boys at the meat counter, the girls filling the cracker aisle, and none of them fully awake and all of them carrying on multiple phone-texting conversations.  The girls seem unable to shop unless the entire sorority is present.  The boys come in smaller groups - but they are physically larger.    In that milieu, anyone over 40 takes life in hand in trying to go around or through these congealed groups of our future leaders - heaven help us.  

 

It's not that the students are rude - they just aren't fully awake.  

[Fonty]

I HATE fruit and vegetables that come sitting on plastic trays!

 

They have even started selling potatoes all wrapped up in cellophane now. 

[taxi4ballet]

I've even seen cellophane-wrapped coconuts! 

[Anjuli_Bai]

I've seen coconut milk wrapped in a nut.

[alison]

Having said that, our local Tesco has started to sell bananas in enormous bunches.  I quite like bananas, but i don't really want to lug home 16 of them at a time.  I'm afraid I do tear them apart, although I try to do it as neatly as possible. 

 

That's okay, I don't have a problem with that at all.  It's just that to buy x bananas and then just tear one off for the sake of it seems totally wrong to me.

 

Incidentally, a Sainsbury's Local opened near the office recently.  I've been trying to avoid buying things in it since it's not exactly cheap, and there's a big branch not that much further away.  The receptionist went in there, bought her usual supply of bananas, and was shocked to find that instead of paying about 60-70 p she was charged £1.20.  She hadn't registered the label which said they were sold individually, not by weight.

[Melody]

It's getting harder and harder at our various local supermarkets to buy fruit that isn't prepackaged in some way, and I've found that often there's at least one rotten item in the bag which quickly infects all the rest of them. I sometimes wonder if the packager adds one fruit from the rotten pile, a couple from the underripe pile, a couple from the bruised pile, and a couple from the good pile, because every bag seems to have the same mix of a few good items and quite a lot of not so good items.

 

However, a couple of weeks ago we found an international market at a shopping centre we hadn't visited before, and the fruit and vegetables there (catering to the Hispanic, Asian, and Caribbean communities) were more varied, fresher, and cheaper than in the usual supermarkets. So we're making regular trips up there to stock up on produce. I don't have a clue what half the stuff on the shelves might be, but the fresh produce (and, by the looks of it, the meat and fish) is definitely worth the trip. Between that and a couple of local farmers' markets, we're relying on the chain supermarkets less and less.

 

Incidentally, my husband was talking with a friend of ours a few weeks ago and mentioned something about a hand of bananas; she was quite intrigued by the description, and said she'd never heard it before. Apparently it's one of those British things that hasn't made it across the Atlantic in a big way.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Melody

[Fonty]

My remark about plastic wrapped fruit was triggered by Anjuli's story about the woman opening up the plastic boxes of strawberries and picking the best ones out.  While I agree that this is unacceptable behaviour, I do have a certain sympathy with her. 

 

It is strange, because I spend quite a bit of time abroad in Europe, and the supermarkets there can be absolutely huge, but they still sell the fruit and veg loose.  I just love the cherry season in Portugal, they sell them in huge baskets, and everyone...cherry picks the ones they want, at whatever level of ripeness.  You then weigh and price your purchases yourself, which I think is an excellent idea. 

 

They also have a wonderful idea, which is the bargain section.  Here, you can buy fruit and veg that do not conform to the EU standard.  Wonky looking potatoes, apples that are on the small side, tomatoes that are either huge or tiny, lumpy looking cucumbers...all served at much cheaper prices that the perfect specimens.  And let's face it, they taste identical.  Why don't supermarkets do that here?

 

 

 

Incidentally, a Sainsbury's Local opened near the office recently.  I've been trying to avoid buying things in it since it's not exactly cheap, and there's a big branch not that much further away.  The receptionist went in there, bought her usual supply of bananas, and was shocked to find that instead of paying about 60-70 p she was charged £1.20.  She hadn't registered the label which said they were sold individually, not by weight.

 

 

 

Did I say, I hate supermarkets with the word "local" "little" or whatever in front of the title.  Just a con to charge more for exactly the same goods that they sell in their bigger branches. 

[taxi4ballet]

Clients who never pay their bills on time despite constant reminders, and then come up with every excuse under the sun, making out that it is somehow not their error, but is the procedure at fault and that you are to blame, not them.

 

I want my money.  Grrrrrrr

[Fonty]

Poor Taxi.  I know how you feel. 

 

I don't know what you do for a living, but a friend of mine runs a cleaning company.  She flatly refuses to do the bigger companies, because they do not pay.  They sign a contract for monthly payments, then send an email saying it is company policy to pay all bills 6 months in arrears. 

 

And sit smugly back, knowing that small companies cannot possibly afford to wait that long, or to take them to court. 

[alison]

Taxi, I know what you mean  I had a German client last year who took 3 months to pay me ... 60 quid!  Have you visited http://payontime.co.uk/?  You're entitled to charge interest on anything not settled within 30 days.

 

Fonty, taking a client to the Small Claims Court is actually very cheap, I gather.  Not only that, but sending them a copy of the paperwork you're intending to file there has a marvellous effect of concentrating the brain, I'm told.  OTOH, you run the risk of losing the client, but if they're not paying anyway that may not be such a loss.

[Jacqueline]

I once took a builder to the small claim court. He was doing some work on my property and through his negligence, my car was badly damaged. He tried every trick in the book to avoid responsibility, including bullying and threats. I got a solicitor to deal with it for me and as soon as it went to court, the builder paid up like the 'reasonable man' he considered himself to be. 

When I was a driving instructor, I had problems with a client/pupil who failed to cancel lessons in the time honoured tradition of having the courtesy to give me some notice. This meant she had to pay for missed lessons. She then became mysteriously uncontactable. I had a franchise at the time and the so called back up was a waste of time. So I had to pay to have the bailiff - I think - send her a letter telling her she had until a certain date to pay up. Of course she didn't reply, so another letter was sent. She didn't reply to that either. This was costing me more money than she owed me and I decided it was pointless trying to take it any further. I was advised that some people just don't honour their obligations, have no fear of official letters and they cannot be forced to comply. What is the law for then? 

When I became an independent instructor, matters were very different. I wrote up my own terms and conditions and made sure pupils read, understood and signed them, parents as well if necessary.  All lessons were paid for in advance and all cancellations within less than 48 hours were paid for, unless there were provable extenuating circumstances. It sounds tough but I was sick of being messed around. People, if they think at all, seem to assume that you get paid whether they turn up or not, but being self - employed doesn't work like that.

[taxi4ballet]

Have been promised payment tomorrow - I'll let you know!!!

[taxi4ballet]

Still haven't been paid - the lying B...[expletive deleted]

[Jacqueline]

Still haven't been paid - the lying B...[expletive deleted]

What are you going to do?