Royal Knees-Up
Posted: Sat 30 April, 2011 Filed under: Charm School, Media, Photography Leave a comment »From a range of sources, this has to be the best/funniest photo from the Royal Wedding yesterday…
Dirty Mind, Royal Wedding
Ho Effing Ho
Posted: Thu 16 December, 2010 Filed under: Art, Charm School, Festering Season, People, Shopping, Sweary 3 Comments »
Nice to see that someone else feels roughly the same way about the Festering Season as I do…
In this case,
a ‘disgruntled employee’ of Harrods disabled the correct lights until he could spell out his feelings to Harrods bosses and Christmas shoppers alike. He was removed by security guards after an hour-long stand-off, then handed over to police.
It could be is photoshopped, I don’t know. But it is excellent. (Updated : The story is originally from The Poke, a spoof news site. The original photo pre-photoshop is visible here.)
FO at Christmas
Clamper’s Contract
Posted: Tue 2 November, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Creativity, Customer Services Leave a comment »James Holden has come up with an ace way of combatting car clampers…
Parking Contract
Everybody is familiar with the notices displayed in car parks. The gist of them is that by parking you are entering into a contract which obliges you to pay a sum of money if you breach the terms of the agreement. These notices are enforced by contract law and are very different to the legitimate PCN (Penalty Charge Notice) tickets that public officials can issue, which you have to appeal properly if you think you’ve been ticketed unfairly.
This got me thinking. If I can be said to have entered into a contract by simply being near one of these signs, so can they. It should cover off enough of the angles of attack, fines, clamping, towing and so on
Excellent stuff.
Firefight
Posted: Tue 26 October, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, People 1 Comment »Apparently, London Fire Brigade are in the middle of a dispute about the scrapping of current rota systems, and plan to strike in protest. For 48 hours starting on the 5th November – pretty much their busiest day of the year. Way to go.
Even more impressive, Diwali this year also falls on November 5th, so that’s going to concentrate the fireworks and so on into one weekend. And the firemen will be on strike.
Genius.
Eighty Fucking Quid
Posted: Thu 23 September, 2010 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, National Express East Anglia, Norfolk, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »One of the more surprising things about yesterday’s trip to London was the cost of the train ticket to do the journey.
Now I wrote about it last year when National Express East Anglia decided to almost-double the cost of the trainfare overnight from £40 to £74, and ended up with a letter from NEEA telling me that oh yes, it’d been an error, and the prices would drop back down at the next revision.
Looks like that was a lie, too. Indeed, the price has now gone up, so a return ticket with travelcard cost me £80.80 That really takes the piss. I could’ve driven down, parked all day, and driven back for less than half that amount – the only reason I didn’t was that I wasn’t in the mood for navigating London and the M25.
On the (very minor) plus side, the trains are now a lot less busy than they were when I was using them on a daily basis a couple of years back. Of course, that just means that (in theory at least) NEEA will then try and gouge their remaining customers even more in order to maintain the same levels of income.
WTF
Posted: Fri 17 September, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, News, People, Stupidity, Sweary Leave a comment »Every so often a story in the news just makes me say “What. The. Fuck?” – this one is one of those stories.
Children at a school near Selby have had a play break cancelled and hard ball games banned after neighbours complained to the council about noise.
Barlby Community Primary School has also put up a soundproof fence because it fears a noise abatement order.
So people who live near a school – and one assumes, have either a) lived there for a while, or b) moved in thinking it would be nice and quiet (because they’re shit-for-brains morons) – complain that the school is noisy at play time.
You really have to wonder sometimes. In the town where I grew up, a housing estate was built that backed on to the local sewage farm. People who moved into those houses complained about the smell, and tried to get the (pre-existing) sewage farm shut down. When I was in Manchester people who moved in to one part of the city centre complained about the noise from the bars, and tried to get them shut down.
If you’re that fucking stupid that you move near a school, or a bar, or a sewage farm, and only then complain that there’s a problem, then you don’t deserve to be allowed to complain. Live with it, and shut the fuck up. You moron.