The Grumpy Old Blog

  Surreal experience in my local convenience (well, it's a 15 minute walk, so not really convenient) store which doubles up as a Yodel parcel store. I sold some tat on Vinted and went to "post" it, the new owner assuming delivery to them by using Yodel might indeed materialise this year. Anyway, the shop is owned, somewhat unusually, by a Mrs Wong (I never phone the shop in case I DON'T get the Wong number) whose lovely daughter usually manages it. However, today, Mrs Wong herself was at the helm. Her English is a bit 'suspect' at times.   Now a fellow worker on the magazine at the publisher I worked for in Dublin many decades ago was named Barry Knight. After much gesticulation, pointing and pleasant surreal conversation of which I had no idea what she was talking about, Mrs. Wrong announced as I was leaving, "Your Barry Knight". I replied "Sorry, no, I'm not" to which she looked rather dismayed. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the

  Doncha just lurve those who only ever appear once a year on Facebook, hashtagging everyone to announce "3 sleeps to go" (what a stupid statement!). This is followed three days later by a "𝐠𝐨𝐬𝐡, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐂𝐮𝐛𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐚𝐛-𝐮𝐮𝐮𝐮𝐮-𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐞 - 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐌𝐜𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐝'𝐬 𝐚𝐮 𝐯𝐢𝐧, 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢-𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐓𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐍𝐮𝐧. 𝐎𝐡 𝐰𝐞 𝐃𝐎 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬."   This then marks the start of a fortnight's flood of dullard pictures of food, views of 6-star hotels they plain

Come on folks, let's not be cynical.  Now that you have all sewn up your stomachs following its gutting by the death of Mr Sven-Göran Eriksson, it's time to consider Oasis.   (I cannot understand why anyone would want to become, in essence, a "disciplinati" and go through such a cruel self-mutilation as a "gutting" on behalf of someone who died that they don't know, have never met and who didn't help their family in any material way except encourage them to part with £85 for a shirt with an advertisement on the front for some large corporation, and which was manufactured in Bangladesh by a half-blind child for $4).   Yes, let's all fawn and become positively orgasmic at the thought of two louts from Burnage in Manchester (OK, yes, they are talented) getting together to altruistically sell hundreds of thousands of tickets, a year in advance, at £100+ a time [plus rip-off fee], flog t-shirts and other worthless branded tat at the concerts, all for

  Sadly, I only ever get to see Facebook advertisements when using Facebook on my mobile, which I don't do all that regularly. Am I missing out? "AdBlocker for Facebook" and "Hide Recommendations and Reels" - two very beautiful browser extensions (although the latter does hide posts from those who have a habit of posting their personal stuff as appalling "reels") that make Facebook for PC/Laptop so enjoyable! Yes, I know some will nark that Facebook "has to make a living" so it can continue to avoid the mountains of tax it currently very admirably steers clear of, but hey, they still have all the fake personal profile material of mine that they have been stealing and selling in exchange for my membership here that they can continue to use! It's not my fault that the Universidad de Oriente, Cuba that I have never attended is not accepting any more overseas students, or that the Acme Corporation where I wasn't the CEO in charge of Sarca

Some people moan and groan about the NHS. Not me.   I had an NHS "lung check" for the over-65's today, booked via my GP in one of those complicated mobile units, complete with mobile scanner, for 15:50 today. I was seen at 15:50, and following confirmation that I do in fact have two lungs, I was sent on my way by 16:15, no scan needed. However, Paul the Medic (for it was he; Pat the Postman was out on his rounds), noticed that my left ankle was somewhat swollen, and suggested I book a GP appointment, which I did by popping/hopping into my GP surgery (which I had to walk past to get back home, avoiding the middle of the Lidl next door to the practice, which invariably relieves me of money for its special offers such as a cement mixer or 2-person submersible). The surgery booked me in for inspection by the lovely Dr Bhatnagar (who is always worth seeing, ailment or not. She is the medical equivalent of Jessica Alba, who, as a result, when she takes my blood pressure, the fi

Do brands really think slamming "limited edition" on their products adds some form of extra desire (which it does for extremely dim people). Especially when it is at the lower end of the market in terms of pricing, appearing on the shelves of discount shops. The current fad for "limited edition" is a form of product testing that actually rebounds on the brand. This is because it may artificially encourage purchase by the "wannahaves" (the ones who pray in front of "soshul influenzas" on ThickTack) and thus skew the results. The one I really object to is products that have quite happily been "amateur" for years and years (mobile phones, earbuds, toothpaste, toilet brushes) all suddenly becoming "Pro". As a grumpy old git, I wrote to Apple asking if their iPhones from the 1st iteration in 2007 to the adoption of the "pro" nonsense in 2019, intimated that those iPhones introduced during those intervening 12

I have just returned from my sole weekly religious ramble, that is, to collect the guilty pleasure that is a paper version of The Sunday Times. Far more effective and less expensive, I might add, than swatting flies with an iPad. There were three young ladies in the shop, dropping off an assortment of Yodelised parcels for despatch (as opposed to "dispatch" - that is a 'something' that is "sent by speed" which I suspect Yodel cannot be justly accused of).   Their conversation was a model of spoken English. One of the young ladies mentioned that their Christmas dinner tomorrow, after the King's Speech no less, (not too sure whether they will be listening to HRM the King by his replantable Christmas tree - the Palace has NOT cut the roots off, intending to return it to pasture on the 13th day - or whether they mean the Colin Firth film) will be "to die for".   This, to me, seemed a rather terminal outcome for a Festive family dinner. However, sh