Currys Online Ordering

Posted By Mark on Dec 8, 2012

Currys do a reasonable job of giving you information about products when you order from them online. If you order from them online. Which is something I’m less likely to do in future. Here’s why: This order confirmation – at least to me – says that I will be able to collect my order from 5pm on Friday the 7th of December, the date of its delivery to the store. And this email on the morning of the delivery day – again, to me – indicates – and maybe I’m reading too much into it – that the delivery was on its way to the store. I had high hopes that popping into the store after work (well after 5 o’clock in the evening, just so you know) on the Friday dated the 7th December would allow me to pick up the object I’d paid for online a few days earlier and which I’d been assured was on its way there in an email sent about nineteen hours prior to my arrival. It wasn’t there. And the staff at Currys couldn’t have looked more disinterested in checking where it was if they’d just come back from a week’s training in caring less where they’d picked up the coveted Shrug d’Or top prize for being unhelpful. I’ve since discovered (from talking to a very helpful woman on the Currys helpline who was both very efficient in determining the information I requested and suitably apologetic for the piss-poor performance of the company she was representing) that when you see something like this: you should not assume it means that your order is on its way because it won’t be, it’ll still be in the sorting office, the weekend will have rolled around, nobody delivers over the weekend, and while you might imagine it’ll turn up on the Monday coming up it’s probably best to wait until at least the Wednesday (i.e. seven days after you’ve ordered and paid for (don’t forget: you’ve already paid for it; Currys already have your money)) before checking back again as experience indicates they are this hapless. My Currys experience: I rate it yellowy-brown on the colour scale of customer...

Die Antwoord Triple

Posted By Mark on Dec 5, 2012

Last week we popped up to London and watched Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie perform at the O2 arena. It was a good gig from Mr Manson. It was a stunningly, incredibly, wonderfully awesome gig from Mr Zombie (I’m saying that I liked it). Since I quite regularly post three related music videos on this site in an attempt to convince the world (okay, Google) that I haven’t given up on the whole maintaining my own site lark you might be forgiven for thinking this would lead me to an easy Manson or Zombie video selection. However, I’m not going to do that. Prior to the gig there was a short rock DJ set. We got to listen to Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and numerous other tracks in keeping with the feel of the night to come. But in amongst those songs was something I’d never heard before; something I’d not heard, yet liked. I listened out for some words, noted them down in OneNote on the phone and then… forgot about it for a few days. Eventually, however, I did remember and did a bit of searching. The result was a South African group called Die Antwoord. The music style is called Zef. The song I’d been attracted to was called Fatty Boom Boom. The videos are deliciously fabulous. I bought the latest album, naturally. Fatty Boom Boom Enter The Ninja I Fink U...

Earth, Wind, Fire, Etc

Posted By Mark on Dec 4, 2012

The Snow Queen

Posted By Mark on Dec 2, 2012

I tried the natural shot but didn't like it. I tried black and white and didn't like it either. She's the Snow Queen – well, she's a woman in white on stilts walking around Abingdon but let's not quibble over semantics – and she demanded something a little high key. And you always do what a woman demands of you. If I've learnt one thing in life then it's that. Google+: View post on...

British Pride

Posted By Mark on Dec 2, 2012

There’s an unwritten rule if you want to keep your sanity intact while browsing the internet: don’t read the comments on a public Facebook page dedicated to racism disguised as national pride. I’ve just written that rule down. And the reason I’ve done that is because I broke that rule and need to punish myself for this horrible lapse in common sense. I visited this page: Poppy Burners In Court 23rd Feb Like This Page To Lock Them Up. What was I thinking? Let’s be clear: the likers and commenters in support of that page’s publicised goal are morons. Racist morons. Horrible people. On the plus side, however, they are publishing their horrible, racist, often illiterate rants on a public page so it’s nice that you don’t have to guess whether these people are intolerant, mentally-limited arseholes any longer. People like these: Ann Wharton from the Wirral (currently working abroad, helping the economy of a foreign country) and Jonny Blythy from just outside Middlesbrough showing that they were probably skiving on the day their respective schools (massive assumption that they went to any taking place here) were teaching how to spell racial epithets. And, of course, Ann Wharton is a horrible, horrible person for wishing rape upon another person’s wife. Daryl Brunton from Lincoln is very angry at immigrants coming over to our country and – if I’m interpreting this utter mess of a diatribe correctly – stealing all our dictionaries. It’s very easy to mouth off but it’s something else to get up, get out there, and just do something, and Neil Maybury falls firmly in the latter camp. Neil wants babies. Lots of babies. White babies. More white people babies than dark people babies. And he wants them now. For Britain. His Britain. He’s so damned proud of Britain and its white babies, but he must have more white babies for Britain because there just aren’t enough white, British babies being born. So he’s moved to Birmingham, Alabama. And he might have gone there with several of his sisters and some close cousins. Just saying. Expect some white, American-born, British, low-IQ, genetically-weak babies very soon! A lot of people think it’s okay to advocate murder on a public forum and far and away the most popular form of murder that these particular commenters appear to be in favour of is that of burning other humans alive. These delightful specimens of human shit – Sheffield’s David Raw, Steven Seago from Grays, Land Rover mechanic Drew Perilmeadow from Basingstoke, Swinton Insurance sales executive Neil Passey from Worcester, and Manchester’s Jay Rayner – are just a handful of the many...