Archive for July, 2005
Daily Express moves beyond parody
Incompetence
I ordered a new fridge a few weeks ago, and the courier called me to arrange delivery. Would I be in on the 18th of July? Yes! Did the fridge turn up? No! So I called the courier, who checked the records and informed me that it was a delivery *week commencing* the 18th. Would I be in on Friday? Erm…
Me: I’ll be in all day, but I need to go to a hospital appointment in the afternoon. Would a morning drop be possible?
Courier: We won’t know that until Friday.
Me: Can you give me an idea of the delivery time at all?
Courier: Sorry, no.
Me: Okay, then. Is there any way you can contact me to let me know when he’s on his way?
Courier: Yes. The driver can call you on Friday morning.
Me: That’d be great. Can I check you’ve got my mobile number?
Courier: [writes down mobile number]
Me: You’ll need to use that number. My new phone line hasn’t been installed yet.
Courier: No problem. The driver will call your mobile on Friday.
Me: Great, because I’ll be out from 2pm. If he lets me know when he expects to arrive, I can make sure someone’s here.
Courier: No problem.
No call on Friday. Called the courier at 5pm.
Me: Hi, I was expecting a delivery today?
Courier: We tried to deliver.
Me: When? There’s no card or anything here, and nobody called.
Courier: 2.02pm.
Me: Oh, for crying out loud. Can we rebook the delivery?
Courier: You’ll have to call back on Monday.
Called back on Monday.
Courier: We tried to deliver on Friday.
Me: I know. The driver was supposed to call.
Courier: The driver did call. You didn’t answer.
Me: The driver didn’t call. My phone was on from 6am.
Courier: Well, we called XXXX XXXX XXXX.
Me: That isn’t my phone number. I gave you my mobile number.
Courier: No you didn’t.
Me: Yes I did.
Courier: Well, we don’t have it on file.
Me: Can you take a note of it now?
Courier: There’s not much point.
Me: Why not?
Courier: We can’t redeliver.
Me: What?
Courier: We tried to deliver and there was nobody there, and nobody answered the phone. So it’s going back to England for a credit.
Me: Nobody answered the phone because the bloody phone line hasn’t been fitted yet. I told you all of this last week.
Courier: No you didn’t.
Me: Yes I bloody well did!
Courier: Well, I can’t help. It’s going back to England.
Me: Let me get this straight. I called to let you know my mobile, and nobody bothered to write it down. Your driver then called a number that isn’t mine, and which I never gave you, and decided to deliver the fridge at a time when you already knew I wouldn’t be there. And because of this you’ve decided I don’t exist, and you’re sending my fridge back to England?
Courier: Well… yes.
*call ends in a flurry of expletives*
I spoke to head office, who promised me that there’ll be a delivery this Friday. I’m not holding my breath.
Then there’s the broadband, the plastering, the missing DVD player…
Still disconnected
…and getting really pissed off about it. Bulldog broadband asked BT for an install date last tuesday, and is still waiting for a reply - so not only don’t I have broadband, but I have no idea when I’m likely to get it.
BT claims that it’s not having many problems with Bulldog orders, and that it doesn’t favour BT Broadband installations over other ISPs’ installations. Uh-huh.
One of those infernal blog surveys
Mr Squander has “tagged” me with one of those music questionnaires. Normally I don’t do these but in the absence of a proper internet connection I can get sod-all work done; it’s either fill this out or do gardening. Naturally, internet questionnaires win.
Total volume of music files on the computer:
I’ve just had a clearout. 22GB of MP3s, plus loads of gigs of my own stuff and working files. Almost all of the collection is either ripped from CDs or downloaded from BitTorrent after the original CDs got scratched, chewed by dogs, run over by cars etc etc etc. So for example I’ve shelled out for The The’s Infected on vinyl, on tape and on CD (twice) over the years, so I feel perfectly entitled to grab it from a torrent. Which probably means I’m a terrorist.
I know purists balk at the quality of MP3s, but if you encode ‘em at high bitrates then the convenience of having 3K songs in a playlist massively outweighs the slight sound quality loss. Mind you, 128Kbps MP3s are painful to listen to.
Last CD you bought:
Sixteen Tons, by Eels. Bought it at the gig. Radio sessions and stuff.
Song playing right now:
Nothing on in the house - can’t concentrate when there’s music playing; my brain can’t treat music as background - but I’ve got Jem in my internal jukebox. Along with the Charlotte Church single, which is rather worrying.
Five songs (or albums) you listen to a lot or that move you:
Walk Like A Man - Bruce Springsteen (off Tunnel of Love)
I never really understood the appeal of Springsteen, probably because of the “Broooooce!” uber-fans I encountered as a teenager. But as I’ve got a bit older I’ve started to appreciate some of his stuff, and I reckon the Tunnel of Love album’s fantastic. Dated as hell - horrible eighties drums infest many of the tracks - but Walk Like A Man is a towering song that could make a rock cry.
Going To Your Funeral Part 2 - Eels (from Electro-Shock Blues)
I could have picked any Eels song really, as they all do the bittersweet thing in an amazing way. This one’s particularly good, though, especially in the context of the album. It’s classic Eels: heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure.
The Show / Wake Me Up / Love Machine - Girls Aloud
Yeah, I know that’s three but I’m counting them as one. It’s my weblog, so nerrrrr. Anyway… I love Girls Aloud, and these songs are pure pop perfection with some cracking lines (the “should have hung around the kitchen in my underwear” bit of The Show is utter genius). Unfortunately they also make me want to dance, which is never a good idea.
Midlife Crisis - Faith No More
Nu-metal always baffled me, because to my ears (which are, I’ll admit, older than nu-metal’s target audience) it always sounded like a pale imitation of much better bands from a decade or so back. In particular, most of ‘em sounded like a bad photocopy of Faith No More, who were never better than in this song. Of course, fashions move on and now everybody sounds like a different bunch of bands. There’s a very worrying Secret Affair vibe to a lot of the current crop, and listening to Radio 1 makes me feel that I’ve been transported back to the late seventies / early eighties. We are the mods! We are the mods! We are! We are! We… Ahem.
I wonder, does being an early-thirtysomething mean that chart music is suddenly off-limits because you’ve heard it all before, or is it just that the current crop of pretenders are just talentless plagiarists? They might as well go the whole hog and call themselves The Jim, The Happy Mindys, The Stone Rises and Talking Heids depending on which band they’re cheerfully photocopying.
Dry County - B-52’s (from Cosmic Thing)
The sound of warm summer evenings, cold beers and pretty women. Although in reality it was pretty summer evenings, warm beer and cold women. Them’s the breaks.
Tag three others:
Hmmm, I don’t really like forwarding on these things so I’ll leave it open to anyone who feels like adding their own list in the comments…
Disconnected
Sorry if anyone’s waiting on responses to comments or emails; my internet access is best described as pretty much non-existent right now and that’ll be the case until BT pulls its sodding finger out. Looking on the bright side, I’m becoming very good at swearing.
The world is collapsing around our ears, I turned on the radio
If you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear i don’t mind after all if it stops the terrorists i’m sure the people who’ve been talking about ID cards would change their tune if it had been their families blown up yes i’d have an implant under my skin what we need to do is send the immigrants back we’re letting in thousands of terrorists i read it in the paper well no i don’t know if it’s true but that’s not my point the thing is it’s all very well to talk about civil liberties and human rights but what about my right not to be blown up by terrorists eh eh what do you say to that then well yes I suppose it’s possible that the bombers were here legally but we’ve let in thousands of people and it’s not good is it this is a direct result of the iraq war bush and blair have blood on their hands of course i don’t mind they can listen in to my calls i’m not doing anything i shouldn’t be doing ha ha ha
*click*
Arsehole
Via popbitch:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - London was the scene of carnage on Thursday after a series of deadly blasts but American R&B crooner Omarion, who suffered no injury or inconvenience, wants people to pray for him.
“Omarion was in London during the tragic bombings that struck this morning,” a statement by the singer’s publicist AR PR Marketing, released hours after the bombings, said.
Making no mention of the fatalities or casualties of the blasts, the singer’s statement concluded, “He would like his fans to pray that he has a safe trip and a safe return home. He appreciates your support.”
He was in London for Saturday’s Live 8 show, his publicist Shana Gilmore told Reuters from Los Angeles. Asked why anyone should pray for him, Gilmore said, “He wasn’t hurt or anything, but just the fact that he was there and all that.”
Security vs. Liberty
This morning’s Daily Mail leader gets it wrong.
Make no mistake, Britain will almost certainly have to sacrifice some of our ancient legal rights if we wish to protect our citizens. Civil liberties mean very little to someone killed by shrapnel…
This morning’s Glasgow Herald leader gets it right.
It is a cruel paradox that terrorism is able to exploit open society, and the right it confers, to move about freely to seek to destroy that society and the values it cherishes. We need to defend our freedoms, but we must do so without eroding them. Identity cards, had they been in place, probably would not have prevented the bombings. There are enough warnings in the flawed anti-terror legislation to be very wary of reining in individual freedoms for a dubious and perhaps unattainable security aim. Intelligence is the key. The BBC reported yesterday that the official terror alert had been lowered to one of a substantial risk. If so, why, given that the summit began yesterday? We need answers to that, and to how the bombers slipped through the security net.
The Daily Star runs the headline all the other papers probably wanted to run, although I’m bemused by the Ken Bigley coverline.
Update, 9.30
The Register highlights two important points: Home Secretary Charles Clarke admits that ID cards wouldn’t have prevented yesterday’s atrocities, and London’s tube network is covered by hundreds of CCTV cameras. The Reg doesn’t say it outright, but despite being one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world - I think it’s second only to Monaco - the surveillance tech didn’t do anything to prevent the attacks. It’s a point worth bearing in mind when papers such as the Mail make idiotic statements about surrendering our liberties and ancient legal rights.
Plod goes after mods
A British man has been prosecuted for selling chipped Xboxes, the first case of its kind. As the BBC reports:
The conviction is the first of its kind in the UK, where the modification of video games consoles has been an illegal practice since October 2003, when the UK enacted the EU Copyright Directive.
Under that directive, it is illegal to circumvent copy protection systems.
It’s clear that the man concerned was doing dodgy deeds - the Xboxes came with a hard disk of 80 copied games - but the case is still a worrying one. Chipping does indeed bypass copyright protection, but such protection takes away your legal rights: under UK law you’re legally entitled to make backups of legally purchased computer games, but the copy protection in consoles such as Xboxes prevents you from running those backups. It’s now illegal to modify your Xbox to play backups of your own legal games, even if you’d never dream of playing a pirated game.
Today it’s Xboxes, but will it be DVDs next? It’s perfectly legal to have a multi-region DVD player, and it’s perfectly legal to import DVDs from other countries for your own use. However, the aftermarket mod chips sold by many firms also bypass the Macrovision copy protection, which is intertwined with the region coding; because of this, they could fall foul of the same law as the Xbox man.
“Oops am I not being politically correct? Shame.”
As the Live8 concerts draw to a close, Adam emails me to object about a review of No Logo I wrote back in 2000. He says:
Just read the article you wrote on No Logo and you need to get in the real world.
These people in the sweat shops should all bow down and thank Nike for giving them jobs, as nobody else is doing that in the East.
Im a 23 yr old entrepreneur and i pay my staff the LEAST i possibly can - because thats business - it means higher profits and ultimately more money in my back pocket. I would also NEVER employ a woman under 45 yrs old as she will get pregnant and id have to pay maternity - oops am i not being politically correct? Shame.
You really, really, really need to burst your bubble and get in the real world. The world owes NOBODY a living - me, you or the people who work in sweat shops. Lifes a bitch, lifes not fair and it never will be - get over it and get used to it.
Also, God bless McDonalds for helping me with my university dissertation 2 years ago. They couldnt have been more helpful with the UK sponsorship manager giving me 2 hours of his time for an interview. I hope they continue to go from strengh to strengh.
Finally, i had to read shit like No Logo in university on my business degree. Amazing how it brainwashes business students (of all people!) into becoming liberals, instead of hardline Conservative Capitalists like myself. They should be giving us books to read about how people such as Mr. Gates, Mr. Dell, Mr. Branson, Sir Alan Sugar and Mr. Abramovich made their billions. The latter is a genius, a true opportunist who took advantage of the political climate in Mother Russia - look at him now.