Coming To A Close
Posted: Sun 18 December, 2022 Filed under: Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Media, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »Thankfully, we’ve come to the end of a number of things this weekend, and I couldn’t be happier.
- The Kickyball World Cup has finally fucked off. I don’t care a jot about the entire thing, and I’m just glad that we won’t have to hear about it all the sodding time.
- Strictly Come Dancing has finally fucked off. I don’t care a jot about the entire thing, and I’m just glad that we won’t have to hear about it all the time.
- The Festering Season has nearly fucked off. By now you can guess the rest of my sentiment on that score.
This time next week we’ll be done with the Festering Season too, and some form of sanity will return for a few months.
Oh, and also it’s going to be a bit warmer in the coming week. Which is nice.
200,000
Posted: Sat 10 December, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Driving 1 Comment »Yesterday, the car finally achieved it’s 200,000 milestone.
I was travelling at the time so couldn’t capture it on the exact mileage, but just for posterity’s sake, this’ll do…
I can’t deny, I’ve been impressed with the tenacity of this car. My previous two have both died off at around the 175,000 mark, but this one is (so far, etc. etc.) still trolling along. Still on its original clutch and so on too – indeed, there really hasn’t needed to be a whole load of work done on it at any point so far.
Let’s hope that continues to be the case.
Handbrake – Additional
Posted: Thu 1 December, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »Today I found out something else related to the work on the car’s hand brake last week – whatever was jammed/stuck was also obviously making some noise during the ordinary running of the car.
Driving the motorway route to be on-site today with my primary client, the car was even quieter than usual, and the only change is that work that’s been done.
For a diesel engine with almost 200,000 on the clock, twotting along at *cough* 70mph, it’s now spookily quiet inside…
Handbrake
Posted: Sun 27 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, KwikFit 1 Comment »When the car got its MOT recently, one of the upcoming issues was that the handbrake was set too high, and not being particularly effective. Not awful, not dangerous, but not great.
In fairness, it’s been similar since I got it. Every year at Service/MOT time the Kia place I used would fuck around with it a bit, but it was always high, and I just figured that’s how it was for that car. It’s never slipped or caused issues, so *shrug* what the hell, it’s fine.
Anyway, last week it stopped being fine. It was still working, but once released the handle would “bounce” back up enough to trigger the “brake still on” idiot light on the dashboard, and was showing all the signs that it now needed replacing. Like, soon.
So anyway, I rang up the KwikFit where I got it serviced and MOTd this time, booked it in (for yesterday) for the work, and that’s all fine. These things happen.
Once they’d looked at it, it turned out that it wasn’t ready to break (pardon the pun) but there was something in the run of the handbrake cable that had jammed, which they released and checked the entire thing (including a re-check of handbrake efficiency) and all sorted. Additionally, it now doesn’t need to be set as high when engaging it. (I assume because I’m not fighting against whatever the jammed piece was doing)
And the price for this? Absolutely nothing. I tried to pay, I wanted to – even if there weren’t any replacement parts, they’d spent workshop time on investigating, sorting, and re-testing – but nope, they insisted it was fine. OK, then – but they’re definitely getting any return business from me.
Health Check
Posted: Tue 22 November, 2022 Filed under: Covid, Domestic, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »I usually try to get a fairly regular health check every couple of years with my GP, just to keep an eye on things (and with particular awareness of the family history with a whole horde of fun conditions) However, what with Covid, lockdowns and life in general, it hadn’t happened since 2018. I was just about due for the 2020 one when all hell broke loose, and my GP refused to do anything except urgent on-the-day appointments which I try to not take up (none of what I’m doing is urgent, and there’s plenty of people with more urgent concerns than me getting a bloody health check!)
So anyway, when I moved I registered with a new GP, got a message a couple of weeks ago that I was due for a health check, and booked it in.
That day was today. And I’m pleased to say that it all went well. They took bloods for further analysis (nothing to worry about, all part of the process) but the highlights so far are :
- Blood pressure of 140/70. Absolutely fine and within NHS acceptable levels.
- Pulse – about 70. Not ideal, but nowhere near awful.
- BMI / Weight – too high, but that’s nothing unusual. They’re both absolutely normal for me, so I’m not going to worry too much. As always, I’d like to lose some, but nothing so far has really worked, so 2023 is going to involve some other stuff.
- Cardiovascular Risk – so far (and this one is also connected with those blood tests, so it may change) my results indicate I’m at something like a 5% risk of having a heart attack in the next decade.
I’m also booked to get further blood taken in a couple of weeks in order for proper checks of some of those family-history points.
I’ll also get a call in a couple of weeks to go over the results properly, but for now I’m happy with these data points, and happy to have been able to get it all done again with a bare minimum of hassle and inconvenience.
UPS – Utterly Pathetic Service
Posted: Fri 18 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 2 Comments »Ages back, I ordered a cool thing from the US. I knew it would take some time (it was backed through Indiegogo) so that wasn’t a worry.
About six weeks ago, I got notification that it was finally pretty much ready for sending out. I made sure they had my new address and so on, and was told when it had been sent out, although they didn’t let me have a tracking number, which was a problem.
Sadly, it was sent by UPS. Who are, in my experience, utterly fucking useless at least 90% of the time. And this was no different to usual.
Because it was coming in from the US (and emphatically Not Cheap) I knew it would get held up at Customs etc., and that was expected and fine. (Well, not fine, but… just the way it is)
What was not expected was that UPS would take three weeks (Three. Fucking. Weeks!) to send me the invoice for the VAT that was due to be paid. With no notifications, not even a “we tried to deliver, please contact us” card. Maybe I’m meant to be telepathic and to Just Know when things are wrong/waiting.
Allegedly they tried to deliver the parcel (which is a noteworthy achievement, considering it was being held by Customs/UK Border Force until the VAT was paid) but considering I was working from home and no card was left etc. (and the delivery man agreed that he hadn’t been here before, when it finally did arrive) so we know that as well as being fucking incompetent, they’re also useless bastard liars.
Anyway, it all got sorted out in the end – although not with any help at all from UPS, despite contacts from both the sender and myself to ask what the hell was going on, and why they were being so useless. All those messages went into a black hole of incompetence, never to be responded to again.
Thankfully though, despite the length of time it took to get the invoice, I did finally get the thing this week, and I’m pleased with it.
But again, dealing with UPS has been an absolute ball-ache. And now, because it’s finally been delivered, any customer service effort ends at “But you’ve received your package, so everything’s OK”. Ignoring completely the fact that it eventually took more than a month from being despatched to being delivered. Apparently that’s fine, and I should probably just be happy that it finally arrived. Nothing else matters.
So, in conclusion, yet again UPS are shite, and I wouldn’t ever give them money for anything.
Energy Bill Saving – A Followup
Posted: Sun 13 November, 2022 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Utilities Leave a comment »I forgot to update about this! If you’re still reading this rubbish, you’ll know that back in June eonNext Energy tried to bill me for energy used before I left them fifteen months prior. That ended up not working well for them (due to an awareness of OfGem’s rules about back-billing) and they soon effed off.
Anyway.
At the start of October (see, told you I’d forgotten to write about it!) I got a letter – thankfully I’m still old-fashioned enough to make use of Royal Mail Redirection, even though most of what I get in the post is absolute shite – from eonNext. Including a cheque as an apology for their abysmal customer service.
Anyway, yes, the cheque got paid in straight away, and all is good. It just amused me that eonNext took three months to even process an apology…