Melody Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 (edited) We don't even have chip and pin cards standardly in the USA. When we visit home, people simply don't believe that the "world's greatest country" is so backward in this respect. Cards still have to be swiped and you have to provide a signature, and it isn't done at the table in restaurants, so there's ample scope for people behind the scenes to help themselves to the details. I've even come across places in the UK now where we can't use our cards at all because they don't have the chip and pin feature. A few years ago we heard that the USA was going to migrate credit cards to chip and pin by 2013 or 2014 but it hasn't happened. I assume a nice wad of cash from the credit card companies to the reelection campaigns of strategic senators and congressmen must have done the trick. Our latest card has a chip, but that's simply to track its use for the convenience of the credit card company; there's no accompanying PIN. Edited August 18, 2015 by Melody Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 I've even come across places in the UK now where we can't use our cards at all because they don't have the chip and pin feature. Really?! They shouldn't be doing that: there is still a signature option on all cards, for people who may have difficulty remembering a PIN for whatever reason. But I think if you delve into it there are a lot of security holes in the chip & PIN system too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 People with babies who think that mini prams count as "buggies" for the purpose of travelling on buses! I know a lot of people already take the mick with the definition of "buggy" as it is, given some of the miniature tanks I see them trying to squeeze onto public transport, but this was ridiculous. She spent quite a long time trying to manoeuvre the pram into the wheelchair space, which was already occupied by one buggy, only to get off at the next stop! Transport for London's rules are quite clear: a "buggy" must be able to be folded in case the bus is busy and/or the space is required by a wheelchair. If you expect to be travelling on buses a lot, you buy one which complies with the regulations. Full stop. Or is that too much to ask? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted September 13, 2015 Author Share Posted September 13, 2015 Russian vine I've spent two days in Mother-in-law's garden hacking my way through a forest of the stuff, and there is still more of it to get rid of. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 So we've had a really dry couple of months, to the point where we've been having to water some of the plants to keep them ticking over. Had a death in the family last week that requires my husband to travel to England at the weekend to attend the funeral early next week. And after all that warm, dry, boring weather, we have a category 4 hurricane brewing up, set to make landfall around here at the weekend. Brilliant timing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarahw Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Oh no - typical. Hope you all get through it ok. :-( 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 (edited) Well, it looks as if it's tracking offshore; I hope that scenario continues to play out. Just means he'll be driving to the airport in heavy rain, but that's not as bad as a full-blown hurricane with serious flooding and trees and power lines down everywhere. Apparently in South Carolina they're going to get more than a foot of rain from this event. Edited October 2, 2015 by Melody Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 (edited) Speaking of which, 16 inches so far in North Carolina and 15 in South Carolina so far, apparently (good thing that hurricane stayed offshore or goodness knows what would be happening). Plus our local weather gurus tell us we've had more rain here in the last 4 days than in the entire period from the beginning of July to the end of September. Mind you, since we had basically no rain to speak of during those three months, that's not hard. Edited October 3, 2015 by Melody Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 (edited) So my husband is in England for his mother's funeral. He went over to the retirement home where she'd been living (and from whom we had heard not a single word of information or condolence by email, including silence in response to my email to them about dealing with her things since we don't live over there), and soon figured out why we hadn't heard from them. Instead of sorting out her papers and other legal stuff to give to her lawyer and putting aside the couple of small items we'd wanted, they stuffed everything of hers into plastic bags - clothes, papers, ornaments, photos etc all mixed up randomly - and chucked it outside into a garden shed, along with stuff from other deceased residents, and they pointed him at the shed and told him to go through it all and take what he needed. And that was the sum total of the communication we ever received from the owners and management of that place since she died. At this point we don't even know if the lawyer got the stuff he needed when he went over there last week since my husband found quite a bit of bank and tax information scattered among the bags. Edited October 5, 2015 by Melody Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted October 5, 2015 Author Share Posted October 5, 2015 Melody, that's appalling and what a dreadful thing for your husband to have to deal with at such a sad time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 How disgusting! Your poor husband. I am sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Melody, that is horrendous. If I were you I would write a very strongly-worded complaint to the manager and demand a written explantion of their procedures, and ask him how they think that this is any way to respect the dead, and their families. If you don't get a reply, send a copy of your letter to the local press. My condolences that not only have you had to deal with the passing of a loved one, but this appalling attitude as well. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fonty Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Oh that really is shocking. An unbelievable way to behave. After all, it is a retirement home, so they must be used to having to deal with situations like that. I agree with everything Sim says. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Is there a regulatory body for these places? If there is I think a strongly worded letter of complaint is in order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted October 5, 2015 Author Share Posted October 5, 2015 It makes you wonder what happens to the effects of those deceased residents without immediate next-of-kin. This is awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 How dreadful Melody. I'm sorry for your husband and your loss. I agree a strong letter of complaint is due. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Absolutely disgusting. I agree with MAB: if there is some sort of regulatory body, they should certainly be reported. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piccolo Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 Well I don't want to change Melody's subject - plenty more venting left to do there - but why are cycle helmets not a legal requirement? It's no fun standing at the gates of the comp waiting to enforce helmet wearing on my teenage son singlehandedly on my day off. There were several boys leaving on bikes today without helmets and there wasn't a teacher in sight to challenge them. I don't think they should be allowed to cycle to school without helmets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 I'm going to add the woman who, on a busy London bus this afternoon, was so busy texting that she didn't notice that her toy dog, which was on a fairly long lead, was wandering up and down the gangway, providing a very nice trip hazard for all those people getting on behind her. I mean, surely you tell your dog to sit, don't you, in those circumstances? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 (edited) Not that some dogs pay attention, mind you. But then if the dog isn't going to behave, the owner should be paying more attention. On a similar note, I remember one really frustrating time my husband and I were having lunch in a local café, and there were a couple of women ensconced in the corner with their laptops doing some sort of business deal or something. Both of them had young kids with them (a girl of about 3 and a boy a bit older), and the kids were just running round the restaurant bugging people at other tables and shrieking and generally making a bloody nuisance of themselves while the mothers sat there oblivious. Those children could have run right out of the door into the street when other people came in, and the mothers would have been none the wiser. And when the little girl started really pestering us and wouldn't go away, and I rather sharply asked her mother to take her nose out of her laptop and come and get her kid away from our table, she was really shirty with me. Really, electronics and kids/dogs is getting to be nearly as bad a distraction hazard as electronics behind the wheel of a car. Edited October 6, 2015 by Melody 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2dancersmum Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 I wish it was compulsory to wear cycle helmets - seen first hand the far reaching consequences that just hitting your head on the pavement after being gently nudged by a car can have - let alone a major accident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarahw Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 I'm so sorry to hear that Melody - you must complain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piccolo Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 2dancers, this is the problem... Most people don't see what happens to people with head injuries because they're not out walking the streets the next day like people with broken arms etc. What isn't seen doesn't happen! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 I would like to put those adverts that come up down the side of Facebook page which say things like "Judy Dench Gone" the other day I thought she had died and went straight to BBC news page ...nothing there...and after a while realised she hadn't died. What are these adverts for and who is making them. Products are one thing but false news quite another. It obviously amuses some though. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 The mole which has resisted my trapping attempts for two months now and reduced the paddock to something resembling the Somme. I suspect that by successfully trapping a dozen or so of its dimmer predecessors I have unwittingly accelerated natural selection and produced a Supermole with an IQ of 170. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted October 8, 2015 Share Posted October 8, 2015 Ha ha that cheered me up(bogged down with a streaming cold at mo) but sorry about your paddock though! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huddsballetmum Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Cheating boyfriends - enough said!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anon2 Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Quintis your post made me chuckle too. We used to have a ginger tom who would patiently lie next to mole hills waiting to dispatch them, leaving them neatly by the back door of course. I currently have areas in my garden where we are suffering from subsidence due to mole tunnels and two cats who are not even attempting to earn their keep. Most frustrating when you can see the cat watching the mole hill moving but not even bothering to investigate. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted October 13, 2015 Share Posted October 13, 2015 Web designers who design the pages for special offers, competitions, etc. - well, anything requiring you to tick a box saying that you've read the terms and conditions etc. - in such a way that when you click on the link for said terms so that you *can* read them you either can't get back to the page where you've just filled in all your details, or you can, but the page automatically *loses* all those details. Do they have no brains? 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 And not to mention web designers (I've just been trying to watch World Ballet Day, but that's far from an isolated case) who design their websites with broad bands across the top and then put a picture or video field underneath which is too tall to fit the rest of the screen, so you have to keep scrolling up and down if you want to see the whole thing. Don't they realise that most computer screens (and smartphones) are widescreen these days?! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yaffa Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Web designers who design the pages for special offers, competitions, etc. - well, anything requiring you to tick a box saying that you've read the terms and conditions etc. - in such a way that when you click on the link for said terms so that you *can* read them you either can't get back to the page where you've just filled in all your details, or you can, but the page automatically *loses* all those details. Do they have no brains? ...So you call a support technician who offers to talk you through the procedure - then loses his patience when you somehow can't read the 100+ pages of terms of service in a few seconds. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 That reminds me, I bought a new Windows 8.1 laptop a while ago. I still haven't set it up with a Microsoft Account, because I haven't as yet had a chance to read what I guess is probably some 10,000 words of T&Cs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted October 27, 2015 Share Posted October 27, 2015 (edited) Cans and packets of food that tell you, to the minute, when in 2018 they're suddenly going to stop being safe to eat. I always wondered how they knew... Edited October 27, 2015 by Melody 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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