Happy Christmas everyone!

Just a little note (because I’ve only got the phone and no computer!) to wish all the readers of this little rant-space a very happy Christmas! May it be filled with good food, fine wine, marvellous presents and none of those people that piss you off for the other 364 days of the year but that you feel obliged to include for the big day…

Enjoy it everyone!!

On hold music….

Sometimes I think companies don’t really give enough thought to what they put on their phonelines as on hold music.

I’m currently on the phone to Amazon to find out where the CD I ordered back in the middle of November has got to and I’ve been on hold for 12 minutes, listening to THE most annoying tinkly piano music I’ve ever encountered. In terms of sheer awfulness it even beats the strident Coldplay that I got on hold to a delivery company last week. When I started on hold I was mildly grumpy, after 12 minutes of auditory torture I am spitting feathers and wanting to reach down the phone to pull someone’s head off.

Might be a good time to ring Panasonic back then. Someone called ‘Geri’ is now looking into where the fuck the remote control I ordered with next day delivery last Thursday has got to. Apparently it’s ‘a bit of a mystery really’. Really? Well I can’t say I give a shit to be honest, as long as someone refunds me my £11.50 next day delivery charge and gives me a cast iron guarantee that the thing will be with me today. DHL may be showing a note on their delivery site saying that ‘adverse weather has delayed some deliveries’ but it’s been thawing out since Thursday, there’s not a scrap of ice anywhere and had I got on a horse carrying said remote control and set off from Panasonic’s headquarters I’d have arrived by now, I refuse to believe that a guy in van travelling along perfectly clear motorways cannot accomplish the same thing. ‘Geri’ has precisely 22 minutes to ring me back and tell me what’s going on before I phone back and start getting pissy. Ordering deliveries around christmas in this country is a frigging nightmare. I don’t see why they can’t get it right and aniticipate the demand, the bloody festival is annual, it’s not like they couldn’t see it coming. Sigh….

ARGGGHH! It’s another one of those days.

It has indeed been another one of those days.

This afternoon was spent on a shitworks in one of the seedier parts of the city. Yes, the shitworks look marginally prettier in the snow but it still stank of shit only this time, it stank AND it was minus three so pretty quickly, my feet went numb. I noticed as I was walking about that the water going through the launder channel (concrete channel full of water that smells of poo to the uninitiated) was red. On enquiry, I was informed that this was because it’s slaughter day at the abbatoir and their waste goes into the same sewerage system. Will the glamour of my job never end? Still, I got a bit of an early dart so off home I went to investigate the sparkly new things that were due to be delivered today, both orders had been put to ‘dispatched’ and were due to be at my house this very afternoon.

Wrong. Not only had the parcels not come but the CD and DVD I ordered off Amazon sometime last month are still not here either. On checking the ‘my account’ section of Amazon to complain that they’ve now sailed well past their estimated delivery date, I discover that the only option I have been given to click is ‘return goods’. Return goods? Are you have a bastard laugh you wankers? How can I return goods that you never bloody got to me in the first place? And no, I don’t give a flying rats arse if the snow has forced Royal Mail to ramp up its service from ‘Rather Incompetant’ to ‘Smirk, you’ve no fucking chance mate’, I ordered my stuff, I want my stuff and I’m going to complain until someone, and I don’t care if it’s Amazon, Royal Mail or the Tooth Fairy, delivers it. Still, thinks I, I can go and watch a DVD instead of playing with my new stuff.

Wrong. The remote control to the DVR recorder has died on its arse and thanks to the unique way our system is set up, I can’t watch the TV other than through the DVR player. Which wouldn’t be such a problem as you can switch the machine on by pressing a button at the front, no, the problem is since the sodding digital switchover, every time you switch the machine on, a big blue box comes up on screen to ask you if you want it to scan to find the new channels its detected. The normal way of making the annoying message go away is to press ‘ok’ but pressing ‘ok’ repeatedly didn’t work, because as stated previously the bastard remote control has died and my new idea of shouting at the telly and banging the remote on the side of the coffee table to try and make it work didn’t do anything. So off I trundle upstairs to order a new one online. Panasonic’s website should have replacements that work, grand, let’s try them. Yes they have them but what’s this? The delivery time is 5 to 7 working days. Are you people on glue? If I can survive without it for 7 working days then I obviously don’t need your bloody product do I? Ah, here’s an express next day delivery option. Oh, but you can’t use it unless you order before twelve and at twelve I didn’t know the fucking thing was broken did I? Plus it’s an extra £11.50. Robbing bastards, double the price because you know people will pay it as they need the stupid thing to make teh telly work. I hate you Panasonic. Fortunately my mum and dad have the same make of machine so I can borrow their remote control for tonight since they won’t be using the box because Nigel Slater is on followed by Grand Designs (it’s not all naked twister and gin for the over 50s you know) but sadly they are going to want it back at some point and I can’t go out and get it until Mr V gets back, on the off chance that the twats from Parcelforce who according to ‘track your parcel’ loaded my parcel onto a truck at Piccadilly, 7  miles away 9 hours ago, turn up while I’m out.

And I’ve got PMT. The world hates me.

I wonder if it’s too early for a drink?