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All posts in category: Technology

Bruce Springsteen was right... 🎶 57 Channels and nothing on🎵

  • December 20, 2020
  • Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Can’t I find something to watch? The most common question I get nowadays is not about COVID measures, UK versus EU or how Donald Trump combs his hair. It is... “Have you seen a good series recently?”  There are two things we all have in common during lockdown. One is continually opening the fridge and expecting to see different content despite not having been to the shops to feed it. The other is binge watching TV series, despite earlier stated noble ideas of learning via the Internet fluent Swahili or being able to perform open heart surgery armed only with a Swiss Army knife. This is where Springsteen was prophetic in his song from 1992. You would think with more drama being produced than ever before this would be easy. There is no doubt that the best of television now is the best ever created. The most talented writers, stars and directors are forming orderly queues outside the offices of Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, HBO and Amazon Prime. Unlike us at the cinema. However, I have a problem. Everyone wants to create a Fargo, The Bridge, Breaking Bad or other cutting edge shows. Sadly many fall as flat as one of my soufflés. Can we not have a sprinkling of less edgy but more accessible shows? Not every lead has to be damaged, not every scene shot at night or every plot about the evils of drugs, dysfunctional families, child abuse, serial killers or big Pharma. (PS this last group along with another baddie, single use plastic, have just saved our asses so back off a bit maybe?) I am not asking for wall to wall Murder She Wrote or Midsomer Murders. I have sleeping pills that have the same effect. However, there are numerous thrillers, drama stories and even comedy books out there that are a little more mainstream and would make great TV. Or do I need to be put down as I am obviously getting old and crinkly?

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Find me someone who can undo a child lock and I’ll find you a Houdini in the making

  • November 22, 2020
  • Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Do I need the dexterity of a safe cracker to open a jar of vitamins? I am always amazed at Health and Safety’s belief in the stupidity of others. Of course dangerous things should be kept away from the vulnerable. And that includes some parents from kids. Why should responsibility and common sense be the albatross around Proctor and Gamble’s neck? I was  at a dinner party recently and instead of after dinner games like Ibble Dibble or Are you there Moriarty?, we were presented with the challenge of trying to open a box of washing pods. Impossible. Perhaps colouring them like sweets is not super smart but you’d need a mouth like Julia Robert’s to actually eat one. A) just keep box away from kids, B) give them a huge telling off if they try to even reach for them and, C) explain they taste yuck. Give them a tablespoon of mustard if they don’t believe you. Tough lessons worked on every generation back to the dawn of civilisation. Whether it was... “Don’t kick a sleeping saber tooth tiger,” Or “Never wear a black conical hat and talk to your cat in front of the Inquisition,” up to Don’t lick the plug socket!  It was pretty simple. If you did, the consequences were your own fault. Nowadays it’s never your fault, even if you are as thick as a whale omelette. Accidents are never caused by kids because no one told them not to... put the cat in the microwave to dry it, not to get stuck toast out of a live toaster with a fork or jump off the roof using a plastic bag as a parachute.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

The end is nigh

  • October 25, 2020
  • Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Technology
  • View all 1 Comment
Why...

Does anyone believe the cinema will survive? Tell me what is wrong with this likely conversation between studio Execs... “So hey, Covid. Bummer, like, no one is going to the cinema”, says the Distribution Gofer. “Right, so let’s pull all the movies that could get people back now and wait till we are sure we can squeeze the maximum return with everyone going back to the theatres in a year’s time”, says the other Exec. “OK, but surely those who don’t go to the cinema now will pay us for pay per view instead. What’s the point in holding off if we kill the business...”  the Gofer replies. “Doh! Why release now when we might miss out on better box office numbers in the future?”, Exec  “Yeah, great,  I feel you... but in the meantime by not giving any product, won’t the cinema chains go bust... so isn’t holding back a year kind of self defeating?”, replies the Gofer. “When I want your opinion, I will give it to you!” Honestly, the knuckleheads at the studios are dumber than dog slobber. The patient is dying of starvation so to solve the problem let’s give him no food at all! Of course it’s sheer greed. If they wait six months plus, they hope more people might go back to Cinemas, but it’s a moot point. The movie theatres won’t exist by then!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Internet Influencers. Now you see me, now you dont

  • October 11, 2020
  • Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Are some ‘Social Influencers’ allowed to sell themselves in a way that if they were a product they would be yanked from the shelves for gross misrepresentation? Over the past six months the launch of my book Fall Out has thrust me into to the world of digital promotion and social media. In addition, my CBD business is substantially expanding its range and reach so I equally have become involved in the world of credible marketing content influencers and reviewers. Let me be clear. There are  wonderful decent influencers out there. Real professionals whose dedication to their speciality is pure and the idea of paying them for an opinion is an anathema... substance not image is their calling card. However, it is the fakery in a business that is meant to engender total honesty that has my jaw hitting the floor. The proliferation of enhanced photo images on-line has reached epidemic proportions. During the period of a learning curve so steep it was nearly vertical, I discovered the story of the two ladies above. Coeyyy and Extreme are mega influencers from China and just one example of bloggers or vloggers who have ‘tweaked’ their image. This raises more questions than a condom in a nunnery. Firstly, the whole point of an influencer is surely that people trust their judgement, not their cheekbones, to make a decision to purchase something. In addition, as an Influencer it’s surely what you say or write that matters; not if you unfortunately hit every branch of the ugly tree.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

So bad they named it twice

  • September 6, 2020
  • Entertainment/Media/Arts Kids/Family/Relations Sex Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Do drug companies give their products not one but two instantly forgettable names? Is this because they all themselves have multiple names. GlaxoSmithKline, F. Hoffmann-La Roche or the puzzling Johnson & Johnson. Were they twins? Take statins? I do. Everyday. Lowers cholesterol and good for your heart. The actual name for mine is Rosuvastatin. Sounds like a Russian spy. However they sell it under the name brand Crestor. Why? It is confusing for me and plain difficult to remember. Isn’t it a toothpaste?  And as for marketing, the name Crestor does sweet F.A. in telling me what it does. How about Heart-help? Ticker-tablet or Pressure buster? Same with just about any drug you can think of. Here is a list of the most common drugs with their retail name and fancy name. Levothyroxine (Synthroid) Lisinopril (Prinivil, Zestril) Gabapentin (Neurontin) Amlodipine (Norvasc) Hydrocodone/acetaminophen (Vicodin, Norco) Amoxicillin (Amoxil) Omeprazole (Prilosec) Metformin (Glucophage) Losartan (Cozaar). Unless you are actually taking them how many do you recognise or know what they treat? Yet they are sold by the gazillions! With the $€¥ billions these guys syphon off us, does their marketing department really think that unpronounceable and hard to remember names gives them gravitas and therefore the right to charge like the Light Brigade for their product! It’s loopy. I suppose Viagra comes close with association with vigour but Hard-as-rock is much better. Vicodin should be Zonked and Gabapentin Ouch-away. As for herpes busting Zovirax (real name Acyclovir) how about  No-sex-just-yet.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Now you can only go into the bank wearing a mask

  • August 16, 2020
  • Food & Drink Life Technology
  • View all 1 Comment
Why...

Has common sense been swept away by Covid-19? There was a time if the police stopped your car while out on a date and they found rubber gloves, a mask, duct tape and a chemical suit in the trunk they would suspect you of being right out of CSI. Now you are just a responsible citizen. I stood in line at our fabulous farmer’s market today watching a woman in a mask and gloves take both off to sniff and squeeze at least a dozen melons. Then she replaced her protective gear, happy that she was safe, but all the melons were now toxic. Every store now has a hand pump ready to spit out who knows what on your hands. After a day, my paws look like red swollen baseball mitts. Let alone the fire hazard. This stuff not only is highly inflammable but has no flame. Light up a fag and you may not realise your fist is on fire until your fingers start to go crispy! And shoe shops are utterly mad. You have to try on shoes with half your leg wrapped in an overgrown condom! You can’t see what the shoe looks like and I just don’t see how this avoids anyone catching the dreaded lurgie.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Duck it; shot happens

  • February 27, 2020
  • Friends Life Sex Technology Work
  • View all 3 Comments
Why...

Is Spellcheck watched over by some electronic Mary Poppins? If I search in Google for any number of potentially innocent things such as water sports; adult I am offered an eye-popping smorgasbord of entertainment, many of which have nothing to do with surfboarding, scuba diving or water skiing and are very rude indeed! Yet I am prevented from typing some decent Anglo Saxon swear words in a document without them getting changed or redlined. I can almost hear my iPhone nanny tutting at the vulgarity. The only alternative is to sit with Roger’s Profanisaurus (dictionary of swear words and slang) and insert (ho-ho) every rude word I can think of into to my personal dictionary so I continue to be abusive to my friends…in a language at least they understand!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

If I come to a meeting with clean fingernails and polished shoes, don’t kid yourself, it’s not for you. I have writer’s block

  • February 3, 2020
  • Entertainment/Media/Arts Friends Life Technology Uncategorised Work
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Is writing for me sometimes a pleasure and at others a chore? Today I needed to get on with the follow up to my debut thriller Fall Out, called The Bastion. But as is often the case, I am stuck. Of course it’s not directly my fault. My Muse must have deserted me for someone more worthy, or the moon is aligned in such a way that my creative juices are drier than a cinnamon stick. Whatever the cause, anything is better than staring at a blank keyboard. I have just polished all my shoes. Nothing. So polished my belts as well. Still just white noise in my head rather than a new character or plot twist. Cut my nails, tweaked out nose hair, squeezed a few back heads. Zero. I even slung an angry riposte to some fool on Facebook. Still zip. The fool on Facebook made me laugh though. After a fatuous and totally incorrect comment about deer culling that I refuted with an article from the left leaning The Guardian entitled, We must kill Bambi. Why deer culling is a no brainer the response was: “Who asked you for your opinion anyway. Fuck off.” The irony of not understanding when you put your own opinion out into a public forum, by definition invites a response, says a lot about the lack of debate in our social media age. Most bloggers just want their voice heard, not challenged. It’s me me me on a platform that is marketed as us us us!  If I actually understood the origami that is ironing, I might even see if I could attack the pile of shirts that need attention. Tonight we are due out to dinner and I will be as well manicured as a teenager trying to take out the preacher man’s daughter. My host will take it as a compliment. But for me it will be as if Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself had hung the albatross around my neck.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

The joys of becoming an accidental medical tourist

  • January 18, 2020
  • Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Life Technology Travel/Nature
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Do I react like a spoiled brat when forced to visit a doctor overseas? I recently returned from a trip to Asia that had me visit four different hospitals within three weeks. With more trepidation than an actress knocking on Harvey Weinstein’s hotel door, I expected to be met in Emergency by a wild eyed shaman, a witch doctor ready to behead a chicken, or a surgeon who looked like Boris Karloff. Instead I was treated to some of the best medical service and equipment I have ever seen! One hospital in Chiang Mai was like walking onto the set of 2001 space Odyssey. In fact I half expected HAL’s voice to greet me. As for the actual medication, no ‘eye of newt, toe of frog’ but drugs even I recognised. Though of course there is always a risk of a Chinese knock off, but I guessed odds were remote at the palaces of medicine I visited. What did catch me off guard was dosage. Nothing had any effect until I rang my own Dr. Frankenstein in London. “That is what you’d give a 12 year old,” which is probably the build of most males in the country. I am a beached whale by comparison. Triple the dose and all was dandy! Now I was lucky. I have insurance and was in Thailand where private hospitals put many in certain countries in Europe to shame. Even the food was so good I put on weight. I now understand why Thailand is not only the paedophiles and perverts destination of choice but now over 2m a year for those in search of medical treatment. You never know... the nurse might be a Ladyboy. I now have got my head around this relatively new phenomenon of medical tourism. With equipment this good and prices between 80% and 50% less than in the West, it starts to make sense. In fact you can save so much money that once treatment is finished you can recuperate in a five star hotel and still be in the money. Furthermore your insurance company is going to send you a thank you letter!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

That’s a wrap

  • December 13, 2019
  • Friends Kids/Family/Relations Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Is the ability to gift wrap beyond my and most men’s skill set? If there is one action, I find hypnotic at this time of the year, it is the origami-like skills of people in the gift-wrapping department... or my wife. They can wrap the most obstinate and obvious of shapes in a trice, disguising the original into something totally different; a starfish into a perfect cube, an umbrella into a triangle. My wife could wrap up Michael Angelo’s David and make it a perfect hexagon, with possibly a bow discreetly tied to his gentleman’s salami. Give me even a simple rectangle like a hardback book to wrap and it’s a disaster. Scissors never cut in a straight line, or snag and leave little waves of scrunched paper along the edge. Immediate ticking off from my scalpel perfect wife. Even if I trim again, the fold at one end will be pointy while the other end will be squared off. The top of the book will be face against the bottom of the join of the gift wrap paper. The finished object will have an excess of paper so large at one end that it will look like something is trying to escape from the book; like that little monster that popped out of John Hurt’s tummy in Alien.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

I want to determine Government Policy... right after I’ve tidied my room and finished my homework

  • October 31, 2019
  • Kids/Family/Relations Sex Technology
  • View all 2 Comments
Why...

Should a 16 year-old get the right to vote? Winston Churchill once said the biggest argument against democracy is to hold a five minute conversation with a voter. God knows what he would have said if confronted with an acne-infested child whose only experience of voting is on Big Brother or X factor! There is good reason to keep the vote at 18. It’s called maturity and experience. The same reason in the UK you have to be 18 to:

  • Buy cigarettes, rolling tobacco and cigarette papers
  • Buy alcoholic drinks in a pub or a bar
  • Buy fireworks
  • View, rent or buy an 18 rated film
  • View, rent or buy pornographic material that does not contravene UK obscenity laws
  • Place a bet in a betting shop or casino
  • Get a tattoo
  • Join the Army and fight in conflict
  • Drive a car
  • Fly a plane
At sixteen all you get to do legally is shag, stop going to school, and so remain an unemployable moron, and ride a moped. And now there is demand these people get to vote!? At 16 boys are just packets of testosterone ready to challenge any status quo and girls often naive romantics; both sets are naturally drawn to the idealism of socialism (often pushed by zealot teachers) without the knowledge that it has failed in just about every country to embrace it. Hence, Socialists are always eager to lower the vote to people 99.9% of whom pay no taxes and have about as much experience of the real world as Paris Hilton’s chihuahua.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Don’t talk to me. I’m breathing and I can’t do two things at once

  • August 22, 2019
  • Sex Technology Travel/Nature
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Is the law about to stop me talking? (Hooray you all cry.) I see there is legislation being pushed to stop people using a hands-free phone whilst driving as it disturbs concentration. The idea that you are incapable of driving a car and having a conversation is absurd. And the idea that a phone call requires more concentration than talking to your passenger is equally daft. Let me tell you, I have to concentrate far more whilst conversing with my passenger, especially if it’s my wife, than chatting on the phone. For a start, I can’t pull a long face, flick her the bird, put her on mute, mutter obscenities under my breath, pick my nose, fart or even ignore her, like I can a voice in the ether. If communication whilst operating a vehicle is so dangerous, how come pilots who are constantly on the radio, don’t veer off to Iceland when on the way to the Costa Brava? Ships heading for Rotterdam don’t end up at Pismo Beach? The real problem of course is that a couple of generations have grown up whose idea of a conversation is texting. People just don’t have conversations, especially in a car. Usually there is a stereo blasting away so loud it makes your ears bleed. So, when a call does come in, an inordinate amount of concentration is needed to hold a conversation. Or worse they text. Result… car crash. Perhaps as part of the driving test, the examiner should have a heated debate on politics or religion. Or the person taking the test should take a call from the Boss.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Attention Airlines. I am not an egg. Please don’t poach me

  • May 10, 2019
  • Sport Technology Travel/Nature
  • View all 1 Comment
Why...

Do airlines insist on cabins being too hot when you board? I admire pilots. My son is one. The only thing more difficult to understand how to operate than a plane is possibly Donald Trump’s hairdryer… but not a simple thermostat. So please, all cabin crew, can we set cabins at a temperature that human life as we know it can survive when we board? Overheated cabins incense me (in every sense of the word) so much that I have started to take a digital thermometer with me when I travel. I enjoy waving this at the In-Flight Attendant showing a toasty 28c/86f degrees and once in my seat I loudly suggest: “Excuse me, after three minutes I should be perfectly poached. My wife sitting next to me wonders if you would bring her some buttered toast to accompany her meal.”

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Just show me ... don’t write it

  • March 22, 2019
  • Entertainment/Media/Arts Life Sex Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Have written instructions survived?  Whenever I buy anything, I am required to download instructions or manuals as if the digital video age never happened. You can download a video on everything from how to get to the next level of Minecraft, to poaching a peacock, or sticking false eyelashes on your goldfish; so why can’t all instruction manuals be videos? Yes, if I really want to get down to the minutiae of how my MP4 player can change the space time continuum or my mobile phone will connect with the dead, I can read up on the fine print. However, 90% of people (and 100% of normal ones) simply want to know the basics of how their latest toy works. So please, let’s just have a video showing me?  It would certainly make buying the odd sex toy more interesting! Part of the reason I find digital currency so complex is not the theory of having a secure method of payment outside of the clutches of government or banks but the assumption the guy in the street understands how to actually go about the process. It’s Gobbledigook. Double gobbledigook if you tried Das Coin and the electronic WebWallet nonsense via NetLeaders. In an age when FaceTime, Zoom, Skype and Instagram are the communication medium of choice, why am I still asked to download a PDF on how to work a camera! I mean it’s a camera. Visual medium. Which bright spark in marketing thought: “Well, once we have sold this, let’s send a booklet to read that’s a couple of hundred pages long....” Show me how and I might even buy some of the bolt in extras like telephotos etc.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Warning - The earth is flat and dinosaurs never existed

  • February 2, 2019
  • Life Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Am I fascinated by life’s Don Quixotes, hopelessly charging at windmills. My son, (a certified commercial pilot) was accosted recently by someone trying to persuade him the Earth is flat, Australia does not exist and vapour trails are really chemical sprays created by NASA to fry our minds..... If you are bored, whiling away ten minutes with the terminally loopy is quite fun. Never try and disagree. Arguing with the terminally deluded is pointless. Much more fun is to appear shocked and ask for more details. I am simply amazed at the pigheaded resilience these theorists can display with the information now available, which so easily punctures their balloon. A quick trail of the internet on conspiracy theories is only really disturbing when you realise these people can vote.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Oscar night.....just has me riveted to my seat

  • January 24, 2019
  • Finance/Law Technology Work
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Give a damn about the Oscars? The whole thing has got further up its arse than a proctologist’s middle finger. No one cares, because the last decade’s nominated movies are quasi arthouse that do not resonate with the audience. In an attempt to show making movies is really all abaht aaaart, dahling, the Academy has recently become all coy about nominating truly mass appeal movies. And who was responsible for this sudden fit of hubris, a desire to show a more cultured less crass side of the entertainment industry? A man imbued with a strong sense of the aspirations of the pinnacle of quality and not our baser instincts; Harvey Weinstein. Pay attention Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. You want to know why the Oscar shindig is as exciting as watching toast getting cold? Try looking at the movies you allow to get nominated....let alone win! The last ten years’ winners were , LaLa Land, Moonlight, Spotlight, Birdman, 12 Years a Slave, Argo, The Artist, The King’s Speech, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire. I can barely remember what most of these are about? They may be worthy but are minnows compared with the 1970’s. The winners that decade were: Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather Part II, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs Kramer. You’ve probably seen them all, and I can pretty clearly remember the stories even though released 40-50 years ago. US viewer audience for 1970 Oscars 55.2 million. US viewer audience last year, 26.5 million The only thing that sank faster was The Titanic (one of the last broad appeal movies to win back in 1997/8). I am pretty certain neither Rocky, Patton nor The Sting if made now, would even be nominated. So dear fellows and voters of the Academy, try and remember you are in the ENTERTAINMENT Industry. Get back to your roots and out of your ego. Start nominating movies that mean something to the general public and they might watch the awards!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

POA... the dumbest words on any advertisement!

  • January 19, 2019
  • Fasion Health & Beauty Finance/Law Life Technology
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Does any advertiser not understand that POA/ Price on Application actually stands for Pisses Off Anyone? When idly leafing through a six-month-old copy of Country Life at the dentist, I am amazed at the practice of sticking POA against the price of some of the houses advertised for sale. Same for when I pour over my monthly car porn magazines and fantasise about which classic car I might buy when my ship comes in (and after I have suitably bribed my wife with whatever retail therapy most floats her boat). What is the logic behind Price On Application? It’s an immediate turn off. Is it because there is such heat in the market that from day of publication to day of printing that prices will inexorably rise? I thought in terms of property, that was illegal and called gazumping. You always agree a price with the vendor that’s as fixed as an airline stewardesses smile. We live in a digital age. Prices can be checked and compared in a nano-second. Is the advertiser insinuating: “So, pay attention here. Most of you great unwashed, don’t get your hopes up. You cannot afford it and I simply cannot be bothered to talk to anyone before I know he or she has the readies to cough up the ludicrous sum I don’t dare print.” This is appalling customer service as it forces me to pick up a phone or log on to reveal this nugget of information. My time is being wasted by this ludicrous printed version of the dance of the seven veils. Don’t be coy Mr. Advertiser. Show me what you got! On occasions when bored (usually when waiting at airports) I give in to the devil in me and ring the offending advertiser: “Good morning. I wonder if you would tell me the price you are asking for the ‘Gilt-Palace-Nightmare’ in Dubai or ‘Please-stop-and-arrest-me-gold-plated-yuk-wagon’ advertised in the current edition of Shiny Things I can’t Really Afford?” When given the number, my unerring response is: “That cheap! No wonder you did not want to advertise the price as it shows how little you know about market value.” Sit back and then listen to a ten-minute barrage of self-important claptrap. It passes the time before boarding.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

New York hotel bank of Elevators win gold at synchronised swimming and why my etiquette rules can mean death

  • November 8, 2018
  • Sex Technology Travel/Nature
  • View all 0 Comments
Why...

Can no one programme elevators so they don’t all go up and down in unison? It is nearly fifty years since man started leaving litter on the moon, yet we can still spend a lifetime watching a bank of elevators all going in the same direction and stopping at the same floors... at the same time. I’m no early riser so can cut leaving a hotel a little fine to get to an airport or meeting on time. I once spent 15 minutes in a New York hotel waiting for an elevator to make it up to the 35th floor. Rather like waiting for a bus, long periods of nothing happening, then suddenly all six elevators arrived at my floor at the same time. I suspect to this day if you dusted the elevator call button for fingerprints, mine would come up as I had pushed  the damned fluorescent decent arrow  so often in exasperation they must still be engraved on it.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Why do so many movies keep me in the dark

  • October 19, 2018
  • Entertainment/Media/Arts Life Technology
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Why...

Are Directors so obsessed about shooting in the dark? In a fit of masochism and boredom I decided to watch the latest Star Wars extravaganza, Solo, on a plane. 85% was shot in the dark. I hardly could make out anything (except the actor playing Solo had all the verve and personality of a week-old halibut). Now all that darkness might look uber cool on a screen wide enough to land a Millennium Falcon on, but puh-lease.... more and more people watch movies on TV screen tablets or even smart phones. Dark Don’t Display. This is a classic case of creatives sticking heads up collective arses and ignoring reality. To see all those effects on tiny screens needs brightness. Here is a tip for the major studios. You want a few extra $ million in downloads? Shoot an entire picture during the day!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Your call is important to us... because we are charging you suckers $1 a minute to wait till we bother to answer

  • September 21, 2018
  • Life Technology Travel/Nature
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Why...

Do I bother trying to track down customer service? Nearly all consumer product company websites are designed to keep the customer service email and call centre numbers harder to find than spotting ‘Where’s Waldo’. If I do find the telephone number in the haystack of info, rise early and call in the first seconds of opening time, I always seem so unlucky! As if by magic, that very day it appears everyone else is doing the same thing. “Due to a high volume of calls...” Translate that into: “Due to lack of us staffing this place with enough people to bat away the volley of complaints raining down on us like arrows in the battle of Agincourt, we will at least make money out of you suckers by increasing call capacity to 1,000 idiots at $1 per minute so we can make $60,000 an hour doing nothing but reading the papers.” To add insult to injury these customer call centres are usually located in Nowheresville Uzbekistan, Mongolia or possibly Scranton. Get through and you might as well talk to an aardvark as all you get is a script with no room for nuance or common sense. In addition I am sure most of the call centre staff would have more chance, blindfolded, pinning the tail on a donkey, than into a map to identify where I am calling from.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

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