Refurbishment
Posted: Sat 21 August, 2010 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Driving, Parking, Stupidity Leave a comment »Currently, our largest local(ish) Sainsbury’s store is undergoing a major refurbishment – a project which looks like it’s going to roughly double the size of the store.
Not that you’d know it from the Sainsbury’s information page about the Longwater store.
You’d think that information like “we’re refitting this store” would be useful – and positively easy to add to a webpage, wouldn’t you? But no, no mention of it.
As it is, the improvements mean that the main carpark has been reduced to (at most) half its previous size, along with being completely replanned. But that’s OK, because there’s a big simple overflow carpark over the other side of the access road.
Except – um – there’s not. Because in a fit of total planning genius, they’ve also ripped that up to re-plan it and generally fuck about with it.
So of that 694 spaces listed on the information page ( 647 normal spaces, 22 disabled and 22 ‘parent-and-child’) there’s about 250 left. Of course, all the disabled and ‘parent-and-child’ ones are kept available, it’s just the other ones that’ve been epically reduced.
So fuck you, Sainsburys.
Road Maintenance and Sarcasm – The Response
Posted: Thu 19 August, 2010 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Norfolk Leave a comment »Following on from the post earlier this week about certain idiocy with roadworks near us, I actually got a response from Norfolk Council about it. In less than a week!
As Surfacing Engineer for Norfolk County Council Environment, Transport
& Development Dept. I was responsible for the construction phase of the
resurfacing operations at Church Steet, Hingham and your complaint has
been passed to me for action.Firstly I would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the
surfacing works in Hingham carried out over the last two weekends.
During our initial consultations with the businesses and parishes in the
Hingham area the Vintage Working weekend was not identified as a
potential issue.The official diversion route for this scheme was extensive and required
traffic to be diverted along the B1077 from Carbrooke to Attleborough,
along the A11 to Wymondham and then back to Hingham via Wicklewood &
Hackford. Special advance warning signs were planned for various
locations along this route to intercept cross country traffic such as Gt
Ellingham crossroads.Unfortunately the Traffic Management contractor did not identfy any
signage at either Bush Green Lane or Lt Ellingham Road junctions and I
apologise for this oversight. This has raised a potential issue with
publicity of local events and the need for NCC to consult in future with
all parish councils etc on the diversion route to check for any possible
conflicts.If you have any further queries relating to these works please give me a
call
In fairness, that’s not a bad response, all things considered…
Road Maintenance and Sarcasm
Posted: Mon 16 August, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Norfolk, People, Stupidity, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, one of the significant crossroads near us was completely closed for re-surfacing. The problem was that at least one route to get to that crossroads didn’t have any mention of said road closure.
Which means I get to send sarcastic emails to Norfolk County Council. (Again)
To whom it may concern,
I’d just like to congratulate the person(s) involved in sorting out signage for the road closure in Hingham this weekend.
If (as many people did) you took the road from Little Ellingham towards Hingham using Hingham Road->Little Ellingham Road -> Attleborough Road to the crossroads in Hingham, there was not *ONE* sign saying that the road ahead was closed. The signage was in fact before this junction (at roughly the spot of the red circle in this map)
This meant that anyone coming through on the route from Little Ellingham came round the corner to find the entire road closed off, and then had to turn round and go back. This also had the effect of stuffing a significant amount of the newly resurfaced road before the junction.
Of course, the road from Little Ellingham isn’t that heavily used. Except when Little Ellingham has its Vintage Working Weekend event- yes, the weekend just passed.
I look forward to any response Norfolk Council deigns to give in explanation of why there was no thought given to this route, or signage on it.
Sincerely
Lyle
I know it’ll do bugger-all good, but I felt better having written it. And that’s what matters.
Parking – Yet Again
Posted: Mon 16 August, 2010 Filed under: Charm School, Driving, Parking, Travel 7 Comments »Another Saturday in Tesco, another tossbag who can’t park their car
This time it wasn’t even over the blank spaces for clear view lines, it was just slap-bang over two parking spaces…
Twat
KC51WTE, you park like a cunt.
Facebook Users
Posted: Thu 29 July, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, People, Technology, Thoughts 2 Comments »Radio One’s headline on this was “Facebook users details are available online” – which elicited a “Well, duh!” response from me. They’ve always been available online – at Facebook. All of the information held in this file was already available at Facebook – it’s just it would’ve taken a bit more effort to get it all.
Every one of the people listed in the file hadn’t set their privacy settings properly. That’s more of an indictment about either
- how complex Facebook made their privacy settings
- how stupid / lazy people are when it comes to those settings
- how people really don’t think about their privacy and security at all
And that’s it.
If you can’t be bothered to check your privacy settings, you deserve to have your details published. After all, if one person can do it, so can others.
Missing Pink
Posted: Thu 1 July, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Introspective, Stupidity 2 Comments »Following on from yesterday’s post about Pink, Portman Stadium, and signs in general, some extra thoughts…
1) I can be a total arse. I know that’s not really news, but all the same, it’s worth re-iterating.
2) I fucking hate getting lost, being late etc.
3) If I’ve had a crap day, my tolerance for 2) is particularly low, leading to qualifying even more for 1)
Tuesday was, however I look at it, an exceedingly crap day. Stuff had come up at work that had affected me – nothing seriously traumatic of negative, it’d just been one of those days. In all fairness I really wasn’t in the mood for a late night – particularly with the knowledge of an early start in the morning. (For a number of reasons, last working day of the month is a big day in the current job, and requires coming in earlier than usual)
So the afternoon/evening didn’t start off all that well, and my mood wasn’t the best. Not being able to find the stadium just pissed me off a lot, and I didn’t do what I should’ve done, which was either
- Stop and think a bit
- Call someone else already there and find out how to get there
- Use the iPhone to do the same as 2
- Stop somewhere and ask someone.
I should have done one or more of those. Instead I got locked in to trying to find the place by driving along the A14.
Admittedly, I also didn’t expect the stadium to be in the town/city centre. All the other stadia (stadiums? I dunno) I know of are on the outskirts, not in the centre. Manchester, Norwich, Oxford, Crewe, Stockport – all on the outskirts. I also kind of expect there to be signs to say where the hell to go – after all, it’s not like a stadium is somewhere that no-one ever goes to.
But anyway, I did get pissed off, and went home. It wasn’t my smartest move, but it was the one I did.
No excuses for it at all, just sometimes an extra explanation is worthwhile.
Hey Ho.
Pink, Portman Road, Ipswich
Posted: Wed 30 June, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Domestic, Driving, Reviews(ish), Stupidity, Travel 13 Comments »Last night I was supposed to be seeing Pink at the Portman Road stadium in Ipswich. I didn’t see it.
Why? Because I couldn’t find the fucking stadium.
I’m normally pretty good on finding places, but must admit that in this case I’d figured there would be some signs to follow. After all, it’s a football stadium for fuck’s sake. Surely they need some signs for away fans to get there etc.?
Apparently not. I have to assume that Ipswich is truly embarassed about the stadium – they sure as shit don’t like to admit that they’ve got one.
Driving along the A14, I got to the first turn-off for Ipswich. There’s a sign there that says “Football Stadium” with an arrow pointing straight on (i.e. don’t take the turn-off). Fine. Second junction’s the same – “Straight on for Football Stadium“. After that, nothing. I got to the far side of Ipswich, no more signs. I turned round, coming back from Felixstowe direction to Ipswich, and there’s not one fucking sign. Not one.
All told I did that stretch three times, checking the exit roads, trying to see any damn signage whatsoever that pointed me in the direction of the stadium. Nothing except those two signs saying “straight on” from one direction.
So in the end I said fuck it, and drove home.
I assume Portman Stadium etc. won’t give a shit, as they’ve got their money for the gig already. But you can be damn fucking sure I won’t be going back there again.
I do feel like a right bell-end for not being able to find a sodding football stadium. But at the same time it’s not just me, others have said it’s a shit to find unless you actually know where it is. Personally, I’m not going to make the effort to try and find it again.