| lesley153
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Ooh - I forgot to report about LIDL.
I wasn't supposed to be getting any more of their flyers. Shame nobody bothered to tell the local distributor. You can't blame them, though. They just want to get rid of the flyers as quickly as possible. If that means folding three or four together, that's what they'll do.
I didn't say anything, though, because the flyers started coming through the letterbox and landing on the floor. Until last Tuesday, when the origami expert once again created a tube to poke half way through my letterbox.
Who says I'm too old to throw tantrums? I pulled it out of the letterbox and dropped it on the front path, and told LIDL where it was.
LIDL have won - I give up. But they've lost any chance of my going back there. So they haven't really won...
Reply #761. Sep 11 10, 12:05 PM
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Sizzileen 
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paper cuts
Reply #762. Sep 12 10, 8:58 AM
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| REDVIKING57
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Conceding late goals. :))
Reply #763. Sep 12 10, 9:10 AM
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dolly_llama
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My neighbor's loud motorcycle early in the morning.
Reply #764. Sep 12 10, 9:20 AM
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demurechicky
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Am most miffed with our local Sainsbury's. Decided to get a lap top on the spur of the moment whilst in the store, as they had a good deal on a Toshiba. Off the 'nice man' goes to get it. He came back and I noticed that it wasn't the one I wanted. 'Nice man' checks on the barcode...'Ah yes we have one left'. Off he goes again and then returns 10 minutes later, 'we can't find it'. So he checks the computer for availability at other stores and informed me there were 4 at the Harrogate store, which is about 20 miles away. I asked if I could order one to collect at my local store, 'No sorry Madam you can't do that. Company policy'. Sainsubury's did not get a sale, the local Tesco did, a rather nice Dell in cherry red...
Letter of complaint written. If I shop at Next and they don't have something in the size that I want, they order it and I can have it delivered or collect it from the store. I didn't have the time to spend a further 2 or 3 hours out of my day to go to Harrogate.
Whinge over
Reply #765. Sep 12 10, 12:18 PM
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| lesley153
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Good whinge, typical Sainsburys.
Marks and Sparks seem to have a similar policy now. They have a few different ranges of clothing, not all of which are available in the Bedford branch.
I've seen a couple of things I like on their website - could they order them for me to pick up at the customer service desk? No, for two reasons:
- The customer service desk no longer exists. (Whoops!)
- These two items are from a range which is not stocked at my local branch, therefore cannot be ordered in for me.
If I want to see what they're like, I have to order them = pay for them - online. If I decide I don't like them, I can return them. I liked the old system better. Perhaps they've been bitten too many times by people who ordered things and then didn't bother coming in for them. I doubt these people were in a majority, though.
Of course I am free to try their Milton Keynes branch, which is about forty minutes' drive away, followed by a half-hour walk through MK's endless car parks. No, it's bad enough living in Bedford without being told to travel to buy decent things. And, funnily enough, there are decent things to be had here if you look in the right places and get lucky.
So I looked in my wardrobe and resuscitated some perfectly good clothes, and company policy lost M&S a sale too.
Whinge over!
Reply #766. Sep 12 10, 1:21 PM
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| mjws1968
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It's the whole concept that these chains now have three different types of store. There are the "locals" which occupy restricted premises in town centres, are in fact no better than the corner shops they are trying to force out of business and have a totally limited range of products, they never have what you want. Then there are the normal ones, normally in suburban locations, that are suitable for a weekly shop, but don't have the full range of stuff, including a lot of the cheaper white goods. Then there are the "Extra" shops, usually in out-of-town retail parks that do have the full range of products, including the bargains, but are impossible to get to using public transport, hence a lot of the pensioners and unemployed people that need to save money more than more are excluded from using them. Marks is the same, a lot of the smaller city centre branches are limited in the range of clothing, the city centre store in Cardiff has half the range of the huge store out at Culverhouse Cross. And shopping online is not by definition better. If I order from Sainsbury, they ship the goods from the huge Swansea store rather than the closer one in Bridgend, and there are always substitutions, most of which are sent back, I mean no surrender, no substitutions. Retail, its a minefield lol.
Reply #767. Sep 12 10, 2:24 PM
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| Lochalsh
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Several things that drive me up a wall:
--Gum chewing in public
--Leather shoes that haven't seen a polishing cloth since the day they were purchased
--Loud conversation on public transportation, be it on the phone or off
--Unwashed hair
--People who speak on their cell phones as though they were in private, airing their grievances and their lack of voice modulation
--Litterbugs
Okay, am I curmudgeonly enough? Or am I simply the quintessential Virgo? :-)
Reply #768. Sep 12 10, 2:30 PM
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| Lochalsh
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(Forgive me this small digression, but I'd never heard of Milton Keynes until I saw the name on FT. I just assumed Milton was a brother of John Maynard Keynes, but it appears that Milton was once Middleton, and Keynes comes from the de Cahaines family. Oh, and the village by that name lent its moniker to a "new city," which I guess is the place you two are talking about.)
Sorry, I won't do it again. *curtsy* to the OP.
Reply #769. Sep 12 10, 2:48 PM
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| lesley153
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Fairly curmudgeonly - I'd certainly agree with you about the loud voices. London buses used to be quiet places, where adults travelling with children would remind them periodically to sit nicely and keep their voices down. Now they're like the Tower of Babel, with everyone competing to scream loudest.
We had a neighbour like that once. At 7am or 11pm, he would walk up and down the space between our two houses, bellowing into his mobile phone about whatever work or social arrangements he needed to make. I believe that he did it so as not to disturb his family. That was nice of him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Milton Keynes was a suburb of Bletchley, until somebody wise decided to "develop" it. It is now mostly urban sprawl, full of estates (little boxes made of ticky tacky) with roundabouts every hundred yards; and a massive shopping centre. Bletchley now looks for all the world like a suburb of Milton Keynes.
Reply #770. Sep 12 10, 3:05 PM
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| Lochalsh
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If I lived in Bletchley, I'd probably call it Belchley. Would that be horrible of me?
Reply #771. Sep 12 10, 3:11 PM
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| lesley153
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Oh yes. Too, too dreadful. :)
Reply #772. Sep 12 10, 3:13 PM
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| Lochalsh
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(As I thought about it later, I realized that it was MK you criticized, not Bletchley.)
Reply #773. Sep 12 10, 3:36 PM
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| mjws1968
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I have cousins in Milton Keynes, and, although it is not the worst laid out or planned of the new towns, they always visit us, just to guarantee sanity.
As for London buses, I really miss the routemaster buses, that you could hop on and off and not have to wait for passengers to shuffle off and on. It used to take 15 minutes to get between Marble Arch and the British Museum using the old number 7 bus, but now it has to stop for passengers it takes nearly half an hour to do the same journey. And as for the new extra-length buses that bend in the middle, they are very unstable going fast around corners, Nan nearly threw up on one. Also, several have caught fire due to some design flaw, there was chaos in a mainline station a few weeks back because one of these monstrosities caught fire outside it. Change is not necessarily always for the better.
Reply #774. Sep 12 10, 3:50 PM
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| lesley153
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Bendy buses have killed people who have been caught up in the mechanism, and been crushed, or dragged along the road. Nasty things.
I too used to make regular journeys to work by bus, from Hampstead to Arlington Street (next door to the Ritz), in less than half the time it would have taken me by Tube. I tried the Tube journey once, mostly to convince the people who came from south of the river and didn't understand anything that wasn't a train, and were bleating on at me to come the proper, grown-up way - by Tube. Anything to shut them up.
So, instead of getting on the bus at the end of the road, hopping off around Covent Garden and onto one of a choice of three or four useful routes, and hopping off at the top of Arlington St (where it always got caught at red lights), I did a much longer walk to the nearest Tube station, waited for ages for a lift down to the platform, waited for ages for the train, had to change from the Northern Line to the Piccadilly Line (at Leicester Square - another ten-minute walk), got off at Green Park, climbed a few escalators to get out again and a five-minute walk round the corner to get to work.
My account of the journey certainly had the desired effect - they left me alone after that. But now the buses have doors which keep you inside, and drivers who have to do the conductor's job too, I wonder how the "service" would compare, how much longer London bus journeys now take, and how many passengers they've lost as a result.
The good news is that the Routemaster will be back, with a new and, IMHO, ugly design, and not for a couple of years, but it will be back.
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/17/london-routemaster-bus-boris-johnson
Reply #775. Sep 12 10, 4:11 PM
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| Lochalsh
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The phrase "bendy buses" reminds me of Bindi Irwin, the daughter of the late Crocodile Hunter, Steve. She's become a sort of spokesperson for the family (and its estate), and it annoys me to see a young child used for commercial purposes.
(Only in the U.S. South would anyone confuse the vowels in Bindi and bendy!)
Reply #776. Sep 12 10, 5:21 PM
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| kershyd
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Lovely to hear some whinge. I miss that living away from the UK
Reply #777. Sep 12 10, 6:02 PM
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| lesley153
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People who start a thread asking for advice or information, but never appear to revisit the thread.
So any number of FT people put themselves out responding, and the OP logs in every day but doesn't have the simple courtesy to acknowledge their efforts. Not nice.
Reply #778. Sep 14 10, 6:09 PM
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| lesley153
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Hillooo (said in an unctuously cheerful voice); welcome to (insert name of large faceless organisation). Have you thought of visiting our website? It has all sorts of lovely things on it, like yummy recipes... "hints and tips" for using our wonderful products...
(A man who worked in advertising told me that you always offer Hints and Tips, not Instructions for Use, because people hate being told how to use things, but don't mind thinking they're getting a bit of restricted information. I'd rather have a straightforward Why and Why Not. Perhaps that's just me.)
Please listen carefully to the following million options. They may have changed since you last phoned.
Please press 1 if you want to speak about the phone you are ringing from:
press 2 if you want to speak about electrical equipment bought in store:
press 3 if you want to arrange for a package to be redelivered:
press 4 if you're thinking of leaving us:
press 5 if your car engine has been ruined by new improved supermarket petrol with added water:
press 6 if you want to make a payment:
press 7 if you need technical help with your broadband: press 8 if you're losing the will to live:
press 9 if you can smell gas:
press # to hear these options again.
You have selected option x but you may find it quicker to look at our website, on www blah blah blah. Or continue to hold if you really think all this is going to get you a human being. Please note that calls may be recorded for training purposes.
Ring ring...
We apologise for the delay but we are experiencing a high volume of calls at the moment.
... or ...
The office is now closed. Please ring back tomorrow. No, it didn't occur to anyone here to tell you what our office hours actually are. Have a guess!
... or ...
**engaged tone**
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, I rang Royal Mail yesterday. How did you guess?
Reply #779. Sep 22 10, 6:25 AM
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| REDVIKING57
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I think it was 'the unctuously cheerful voice'...........!
Had to be Royal Mail.......Or Lidl!
Reply #780. Sep 22 10, 6:53 AM
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