Rant thread

[The Hallucinating Goose]

3 hours ago, Jeff Stein said:

Received a letter from my bank entitled we are changing how we support you. Turns out they are closing my branch. Theoretically I suppose they are changing how they support me by moving me from being able to walk to the last bank in town to forcing me to drive to another town for the same service. However, they take the biscuit for the sheer chutzpah in trying to suggest that they are doing me a favour and they think I am dim enough not to see through it for the patronising management speak it is.

(Barclays btw, but it could have been any of them)

Same thing happened to me a couple of years back. They insist I can do some banking things at the post office which I do but its just a shame the central post office also closed a few years ago and moved into the back of a tiny WHSmith which almost invariably has queues stretching out of the door. Both the old post office building and old bank building are still empty. Virgin money in my case. 

[neanderthal]

Same here. My 15 year old wanted to pay me her contribution to a PC for Xmas - her banking app doesn't allow her to add payees 'cos she's not 16 yet - so we phoned in - after 20 mins of um's and ah's they came to the conclusion we'd have to go into a branch - they told us where our nearest one was and I pointed out it was boarded up - it was news to Barclays that they'd shut their own branch! The only way she could pay me in the end was to get cash out of a cash machine in a major branch, which I promptly put back in my account at the same cash machine.

It's got the makings of a sitcom it's that daft.

[glossop saint]

On 13/02/2023 at 19:07, Jeff Stein said:

Received a letter from my bank entitled we are changing how we support you. Turns out they are closing my branch. Theoretically I suppose they are changing how they support me by moving me from being able to walk to the last bank in town to forcing me to drive to another town for the same service. However, they take the biscuit for the sheer chutzpah in trying to suggest that they are doing me a favour and they think I am dim enough not to see through it for the patronising management speak it is.

(Barclays btw, but it could have been any of them)

My bank stopped sending paper statements out a few years ago. Maybe easy enough for me to check on an app but logging onto the website to print off a paper version which is easier to go through is a faff. I expect the older generation to struggle even more. 

However I still receive weekly letters from them advertising loans/credit cards etc. Which go straight into the recycling. How much paper is really being saved here? 

[ivans82]

Typical of Barclays if thats your experience .They have lately closed both branches in Workington and Whitehaven which serve  a combined population of around 60,000 ,but kept the branch open in Cockermouth (over10 miles away) which has a population of 9,000.Theres logic there somewhere but i can`t find it . They will probably say its footfall or the rents gone up , but the interest rate for their new ISA is 4% , but they haven`t sent any letters out or advertised it even on the Bank windows in Cockermouth so they obviously dont need the money .

[Wolford6]

HSBC = Hong Kong & Shanghai Bag of Cack

[bobbruce]

6 hours ago, glossop saint said:

My bank stopped sending paper statements out a few years ago. Maybe easy enough for me to check on an app but logging onto the website to print off a paper version which is easier to go through is a faff. I expect the older generation to struggle even more. 

However I still receive weekly letters from them advertising loans/credit cards etc. Which go straight into the recycling. How much paper is really being saved here? 

You should be able to go on your app and reinstate paper statements. 

[glossop saint]

43 minutes ago, bobbruce said:

You should be able to go on your app and reinstate paper statements. 

It's not the actual need for paper statements, just the hypocrisy of stopping statements to save paper and then continuing to send letters with marketing purposes. But thanks for the tip.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

For some reason I have stopped getting paper statements for my current account but still get paper ones for my ISA. God knows why. 

[JohnM]

8 hours ago, glossop saint said:

My bank stopped sending paper statements out a few years ago. Maybe easy enough for me to check on an app but logging onto the website to print off a paper version which is easier to go through is a faff. I expect the older generation to struggle even more. 

However I still receive weekly letters from them advertising loans/credit cards etc. Which go straight into the recycling. How much paper is really being saved here? 

I'm fine with it, honestly.

[glossop saint]

24 minutes ago, JohnM said:

I'm fine with it, honestly.

Haha. I always had you down as a spring chicken John!

I know my grandparents struggle. I shouldn't generalise.

[MattSantos]

From today alone.

People at the gym, primarily:

1. Swimmers (often old ladies) who just #### about on their backs and drift into everyone. Its packed love, get over in that lane if you're mincing.

2. Swimmers who just stop 5-10 meters away from the end of pool to have a relaxed stand. Why!?

3. People who open sauna doors to have a look in.

4. People who take ages to enter / leave the sauna. 

5. Massive men wi Rangers tattoos being really loud in the sauna.

---

Scottish Power.

 

[ivans82]

Whats a gym ?

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 hour ago, ivans82 said:

Whats a gym ?

You find them in jungles. 

[graveyard johnny]

working on a roof scaffold on a christian charity centre  - 1pm they were doing meals for the homeless all done by volunteers. - taking full advantage were a couple of north face track suited, baseball hatted yobbish types covered in tattoos and gold chains who looked like they had never seen a job - both walked out after their feed laughing and rolling big fat joints to smoke on the way home - I would have loved to feed both of them with a knuckle sandwich for desert 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

2 hours ago, graveyard johnny said:

working on a roof scaffold on a christian charity centre  - 1pm they were doing meals for the homeless all done by volunteers. - taking full advantage were a couple of north face track suited, baseball hatted yobbish types covered in tattoos and gold chains who looked like they had never seen a job - both walked out after their feed laughing and rolling big fat joints to smoke on the way home - I would have loved to feed both of them with a knuckle sandwich for desert 

Big gang of these types were roaming round my mam's town yesterday afternoon and evening. They set fire to a number of wheelie bins, broke into people's gardens, smashed glass bottles all over a children's playground and apparently purposefully placed loads of glass at the bottom of the slides, set fire to a second play park, had a brawl in a shopping centre, stole a load of boxes from outside a shop and threw them at traffic. Whole town is scared to go out and there's a vigilante group being organised as we speak; I'm thinking about joining. 

Edit. Apparently its going on tonight as well. Some more bins alight in one of the same areas as last night. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by The Hallucinating Goose

[Wolford6]

Old kettle gave up the ghost. Been a stalwart so I bought another Russell Hobbs. Flash glass body, lights up blue whilst boiling; visitors are impressed.

It's got a wide spout and a wide opening in the lid. These ensure that it  won't pour out a single stream of water ... hot water splurges out of it.

Absolute bag of cack.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Wolford6

[Wolford6]

On 16/02/2023 at 16:53, graveyard johnny said:

working on a roof scaffold on a christian charity centre  - 1pm they were doing meals for the homeless all done by volunteers. - taking full advantage were a couple of north face track suited, baseball hatted yobbish types covered in tattoos and gold chains who looked like they had never seen a job - both walked out after their feed laughing and rolling big fat joints to smoke on the way home - I would have loved to feed both of them with a knuckle sandwich for desert 

I've seen South Asian men in business suits attending the one at the St Patricks Centre in Bradford.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 hour ago, Wolford6 said:

Old kettle gave up the ghost. Been a stalwart so I bought another Russell Hobbs. Flash glass body, lights up blue whilst boiling; visitors are impressed.

It's got a wide spout and a wide opening in the lid. These ensure that it  won't pour out a single stream of water ... hot water splurges out of it.

Absolute bag of cack.

It sounds very similar to one bought for a relative of mine for Christmas. A relative that did not need a new kettle. Its become a bit of a running joke in the family about how random a present it was. The person who bought it for them has a history of buying very random presents. 

[Exiled Townie]

On all the tv news channels this morning, 'We're running out of tomato's, cucumbers and peppers, rush out and panic buy, we have photos of empty shelves, panic, panic, panic.' Went to Morrisons with the wife a little later, no empty shelves, no shortages of any veggies as far as I could see. Mentioned it to the girl putting vegetables on to the shelves and she said they are getting the same amount of fruit and veg delivered as they always do and there is not a problem - other than some people putting five cucumbers and half a dozen lettuces in their trolleys.

[gingerjon]

1 hour ago, Exiled Townie said:

On all the tv news channels this morning, 'We're running out of tomato's, cucumbers and peppers, rush out and panic buy, we have photos of empty shelves, panic, panic, panic.' Went to Morrisons with the wife a little later, no empty shelves, no shortages of any veggies as far as I could see. Mentioned it to the girl putting vegetables on to the shelves and she said they are getting the same amount of fruit and veg delivered as they always do and there is not a problem - other than some people putting five cucumbers and half a dozen lettuces in their trolleys.

Lucky you. The supermarkets round here have empty shelves most days - and that's excluding the blocking off of shelves with *pictures* of produce that are now never filled.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

41 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Lucky you. The supermarkets round here have empty shelves most days - and that's excluding the blocking off of shelves with *pictures* of produce that are now never filled.

Yep, I had to take my pick of the two cucumbers left in my local ASDA yesterday. Admittedly didn't see any other fruits or veg in shortage. 

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Yep, I had to take my pick of the two cucumbers left in my local ASDA yesterday. Admittedly didn't see any other fruits or veg in shortage. 

Been the case for at least a year, possibly longer, that if I go into any of the three supermarkets within a mile of my front door with a straightforward list for a standard recipe book recipe (nothing fancy but, say, couple of veg, a meat, few herbs and spices, oil) then I now actually expect not to be able to fulfil it and that I'll have to sub 1-2 items and/or just give up.

Them not having stuff has just become normal.

[hindle xiii]

Has anyone claimed this fresh produce shortage is a conspiracy yet?!

[JohnM]

32 minutes ago, hindle xiii said:

Has anyone claimed this fresh produce shortage is a conspiracy yet?!

10...9...8...7...6.....

[JohnM]

5 hours ago, Exiled Townie said:

On all the tv news channels this morning, 'We're running out of tomato's, cucumbers and peppers, rush out and panic buy, we have photos of empty shelves, panic, panic, panic.' Went to Morrisons with the wife a little later, no empty shelves, no shortages of any veggies as far as I could see. Mentioned it to the girl putting vegetables on to the shelves and she said they are getting the same amount of fruit and veg delivered as they always do and there is not a problem - other than some people putting five cucumbers and half a dozen lettuces in their trolleys.

tomato's what?