Rant thread

[JohnM]

1. Stop booing Craig Revil Horwood. He knows what he's talking about.

2. It's not the leaderboard. If it was, it would only feature the leaders, not everyone.

3. Stop the audience clapping on time to the music. It is disrespectful to the music and the musicians.

4. Stop giving every dance a standing ovation. 

5. How come a full time professional stage  dancer ( since this age of 12, I understand) who stars in Billy Elliot musical and others is allowed in. It supposed to be for non-dancing celebs.

6. Tess Daly.....well, enough said.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

2 hours ago, JohnM said:

1. Stop booing Craig Revil Horwood. He knows what he's talking about.

2. It's not the leaderboard. If it was, it would only feature the leaders, not everyone.

3. Stop the audience clapping on time to the music. It is disrespectful to the music and the musicians.

4. Stop giving every dance a standing ovation. 

5. How come a full time professional stage  dancer ( since this age of 12, I understand) who stars in Billy Elliot musical and others is allowed in. It supposed to be for non-dancing celebs.

6. Tess Daly.....well, enough said.

 

I agree, though I will just add, 

7. Claudia Winkleman......well, enough said. 

[ivans82]

Simple answer  , just stop screening Strictly........and all " Reality" Telly really .

[Damien]

I love this and would gladly go to supermarkets instead that take this approach. I hate going to the likes of Tesco and Asda these days with like 2 people of the checkouts and everyone being funnelled towards the self-service checkouts. It is a terrible customer service, for anything more than a handful of items, and does nothing but eliminate jobs so that companies can make more money:

 

 

[Futtocks]

12 minutes ago, Damien said:

I love this and would gladly go to supermarkets instead that take this approach. I hate going to the likes of Tesco and Asda these days with like 2 people of the checkouts and everyone being funnelled towards the self-service checkouts. It is a terrible customer service, for anything more than a handful of items, and does nothing but eliminate jobs so that companies can make more money:

 

My nearest supermarket (Sainsbury's) has taken out over 20 tills and replaced them with self-service (with usually just 2 staff to cover all the intervention requests).

I use their few remaining manned tills when I can, but sometimes the queues are too much.

[Damien]

3 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

My nearest supermarket (Sainsbury's) has taken out over 20 tills and replaced them with self-service (with usually just 2 staff to cover all the intervention requests).

I use their few remaining manned tills when I can, but sometimes the queues are too much.

It is really terrible isn't it and is a complete nightmare when you have a big shop. There have been times when I have been tempted to just leave my trolley and walk out just in protest.

[Futtocks]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

It is really terrible isn't it and is a complete nightmare when you have a big shop. There have been times when I have been tempted to just leave my trolley and walk out just in protest.

This will be the first Christmas shopping season since they ditched the majority of manned tills. I expect absolute chaos unless they increase the number of staff dealing with interventions, almost to the number of (ironically) one per self-service machine.

[JonM]

4 hours ago, Damien said:

I love this and would gladly go to supermarkets instead that take this approach. I hate going to the likes of Tesco and Asda these days with like 2 people of the checkouts and everyone being funnelled towards the self-service checkouts. It is a terrible customer service, for anything more than a handful of items, and does nothing but eliminate jobs so that companies can make more money:

I love Booths, but it's for places where Waitrose is considered as downmarket...  My nearest 'chain' supermarket is ~40 minutes drive away, Shopping at any of the more local shops usually involves all the people in the queue having a chat with the person on the checkout, not just paying for their stuff and going, so best if you're not in a hurry.

[JohnM]

Each to his own. Choose how, who, when and where you want to shop. 

Our stress-free choice is to shop on line. 

Shop on line:  No queue, no people (saw a Facebook post yeaterday: Wanted. A leaf-blower, only for people, not leaves) 

Shop on line: no impulse buying, much easier to keep an eye on unit prices, specials, basket price.

Shop on line: no parking issues, no-one to ding your car becuase they've parked too close

Shop on line: delivery charges are less than it costs in fuel. We pay £35 in total for a one-year delivery season ticket. 

Edited November 11, 2023 by JohnM

[ivans82]

My wife used to work at a well known Dept store , every day She was hounded to promote the Stores catalogue where you could shop on line .She argued with the Manager that it was ridiculous as all that would do was put people out of a job , so She left.........as you can guess the Store has now closed .

[JohnM]

Tesco alone has 5, 500 home delivery vans.  So at a guess, with Ocado, Asda, Morrisons etc that'll be jobs for well over 10,000 drivers 

[Damien]

54 minutes ago, JohnM said:

Tesco alone has 5, 500 home delivery vans.  So at a guess, with Ocado, Asda, Morrisons etc that'll be jobs for well over 10,000 drivers 

Supermarkets actually lose money on home deliveries compared to normal shops. They only all do it to stop shoppers going elsewhere.

[Gerrumonside ref]

I get up very early now on a Saturday for the big shop.

Fewer people, smaller queues while still the advantage of in store shopping in terms of getting the better longer lasting food compared to online deliveries.

The only drawback is it curtails having a late Friday night.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Gerrumonside ref

[Futtocks]

5 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

I get up very early now on a Saturday for the big shop.

Fewer people, smaller queues while still the advantage of in store shopping in terms of getting the better longer lasting food compared to online deliveries.

The only drawback is it curtails having a late Friday night.

I used to do that, at least during the NRL off-season when there wasn't anything to watch on a Saturday morning. I did try late evening shopping, but often the shelves weren't fully stocked at that time. Plus it felt weird and a bit Dawn of the Dead.

But now we've moved to a 4 day week (and that looks like it might be permanent after this year's trial period), getting the dull stuff out of the way on a Friday morning really frees up the weekend. Even more time to do either something or absolutely nothing.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

6 hours ago, Futtocks said:

I used to do that, at least during the NRL off-season when there wasn't anything to watch on a Saturday morning. I did try late evening shopping, but often the shelves weren't fully stocked at that time. Plus it felt weird and a bit Dawn of the Dead.

But now we've moved to a 4 day week (and that looks like it might be permanent after this year's trial period), getting the dull stuff out of the way on a Friday morning really frees up the weekend. Even more time to do either something or absolutely nothing.

Which Dawn of the Dead though? Classic original, one of the greatest, if not the greatest horror film ever made, or ###### remake? 

[Futtocks]

6 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Which Dawn of the Dead though? Classic original, one of the greatest, if not the greatest horror film ever made, or ###### remake? 

When in doubt, choose the one not directed by Zack Snyder.

Amazingly, this holds true for movies that have only ever been directed by Zack Snyder.

He's got a really great eye for the look of things - Watchmen proved that. But he can't dig much deeper than the surface appearances - Watchmen proved that.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

9 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

When in doubt, choose the one not directed by Zack Snyder.

Amazingly, this holds true for movies that have only ever been directed by Zack Snyder.

He's got a really great eye for the look of things - Watchmen proved that. But he can't dig much deeper than the surface appearances - Watchmen proved that.

Totally agree, 300 being the example I would use. A great looking, very sleek film that had the potential to be a true historical epic about a very interesting period of ancient history but with no character development or exploration of the characters' personal lives or back stories, and no deep analysis whatsoever of the political situation the events were rooted in, it was simply a CGI jizz fest. 

[Futtocks]

8 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Totally agree, 300 being the example I would use. A great looking, very sleek film that had the potential to be a true historical epic about a very interesting period of ancient history but with no character development or exploration of the characters' personal lives or back stories, and no deep analysis whatsoever of the political situation the events were rooted in, it was simply a CGI jizz fest. 

Yes! I love 300 for what it is, because what it is is glorious, outrageous, heroic and explosive.

I also love it because I know better than to scratch beneath its surface.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

23 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Yes! I love 300 for what it is, because what it is is glorious, outrageous, heroic and explosive.

I also love it because I know better than to scratch beneath its surface.

As an obsessive history nerd, I do struggle with films that take great liberties with historical fact because I'm always anxious that the less informed viewer will think the fictionalised version is completely correct, and this is a concern that many history nerds share. In the case of 300, however, it is about a subject I know very little about, ancient history not being my area of expertise, so I was able to enjoy the film just as an exciting action film which was a relief to a certain extent. 

My main area of interest with history is the Napoleonic era and I must say I am rather anxious to see what Ridley Scott has done with the source material there. It is supposed to be more about Napoleon's rise to power through his relationship with his Empress, Josephine so that would suggest a much deeper exploration of his character which can only be a positive. I have seen a lot of praise and talk of the battle scenes in the film as well so hopefully there is a good balance between character exploration and action. 

[Futtocks]

1 minute ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

As an obsessive history nerd, I do struggle with films that take great liberties with historical fact because I'm always anxious that the less informed viewer will think the fictionalised version is completely correct, and this is a concern that many history nerds share. In the case of 300, however, it is about a subject I know very little about, ancient history not being my area of expertise, so I was able to enjoy the film just as an exciting action film which was a relief to a certain extent. 

My main area of interest with history is the Napoleonic era and I must say I am rather anxious to see what Ridley Scott has done with the source material there. It is supposed to be more about Napoleon's rise to power through his relationship with his Empress, Josephine so that would suggest a much deeper exploration of his character which can only be a positive. I have seen a lot of praise and talk of the battle scenes in the film as well so hopefully there is a good balance between character exploration and action. 

I'm okay drawing a line between movies and historical accuracy, because the latter is usually either a bit dull or too unbelievable.

Plus the ones that sell themselves on absolute historical verisimilitude at the expense of entertainment are always the first to be debunked because of their self-imposed strictness.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

9 hours ago, Futtocks said:

I'm okay drawing a line between movies and historical accuracy, because the latter is usually either a bit dull or too unbelievable.

Plus the ones that sell themselves on absolute historical verisimilitude at the expense of entertainment are always the first to be debunked because of their self-imposed strictness.

For me there are two distinct categories of historical film. The first is films that are just set in a historical period but do not recreate historical events as such and it is these films I am totally relaxed about. An example of this would be one of my favourite films, Gladiator, because while set in Roman times with events taking place in one of the most famous of Roman buildings, there is very little, if anything at all, in that film that actually, definitely, took place and so it's fine to apply a bit of artistic licence I think. A similar thing to this would be like with 300, where because there is so little documentary evidence or substantiated fact as to what definitely happened during that period, again its okay to play with it a bit. 

The other category of historical film for me however, is things like Napoleon where there is masses and masses and masses of documentary evidence and records of the time and the events that take place that it seems almost disrespectful and ignorant of the filmmakers to take too many liberties with the information, almost purposefully misinforming the audience. This is why I say that it is encouraging that a lot of the aforementioned film seems to be about Napoleon's relationship with Josephine which of course will be nowhere near as documented as his life as Emperor of France. 

[Eddie]

On 10/11/2023 at 13:15, Futtocks said:

This will be the first Christmas shopping season since they ditched the majority of manned tills. I expect absolute chaos unless they increase the number of staff dealing with interventions, almost to the number of (ironically) one per self-service machine.

Particularly as most people will be buying alcohol (and paracetamol), so need an intervention. 

[hindle xiii]

The Amazon Christmas advert is on far too much.

[ivans82]

On 18/11/2023 at 19:20, hindle xiii said:

The Amazon Christmas advert is on far too much.

Always mute adverts or swap channels for a bit  , which is all very well but we went to a pub quiz a few decembers ago , and the picture round was 20 xmas adverts  .  We put John Lewis down for the lot just so as we would score a point  .

[JohnM]

On 20/11/2023 at 14:21, ivans82 said:

Always mute adverts or swap channels for a bit  , which is all very well but we went to a pub quiz a few decembers ago , and the picture round was 20 xmas adverts  .  We put John Lewis down for the lot just so as we would score a point  .

Ideally, people should use the ad break to get a little excercise by standing up, walking round, on the spot marching and deep breathing.