PigBlog

As I hinted at below, I need to whinge about travel agents and insurance.

I’ll start by being fair: the agents refunded our money, but not until after a lot of hassle and stress and hard work form my very nice neigbour Helen.

I’ll lay out the facts: Two Belgian commuter trains crashed. This casued chaos, includung to the eurostar service:

Screengrab from Eurostar site, 17-02-2010

You may like to note that paragraph:

We therefore strongly advise travellers between the UK and Brussel (sic) to cancel or postpone their journey

I called our travel insurance co, and they suggested that there may be a way to claim for the accomodation- Eurostar were refunding travel costs.

Their story changed the next day. Apparently, this counts as ‘disinclination to travel’ which is not covered.

I’m frankly shocked, though not that surprised, that when the Foreign Office refers to Eurostar’s advice, which is not to travel, that the insurance company say we must travel, then if we suffer a 12 hour plus delay or cannot reach the destination they will pay.

Strikes me as irresponsible, and double standards- we choose not to place ourselves in a risky situation they choose to not pay out. Still, that’s insurance for you, the fetid bastards.

Evil Overlord 21: An eternal rainy Sunday in Bracknell, with all of the pubs shut and no TV and cinema for the insurance industry.

Well, nearly 2 years after the event, I have the payout for compensation and my excess from the Fabia getting bent.

Blimey, the legal profession are a bunch of cunts aren’t they?

Their legal wrangling, stalling, and trying to maximise their own costs has meant that it’s taken a long time and a few hours of my time in court to get my cash- and the payout was less than one of the other party’s insurance company’s offers.

Evil Overlord 20: The legal profession will be forced to sit in a sealed room and drown in each other’s bullshit.

Heh. Here I am again, picking on the Macintosh. Guaranteed to provoke a response from The Bumpkin for a start, and maybe Bob will join in too, as he uses a Mac.

But wait. There’s a twist to this one. There will be a brief swipe at the Mac.. but only that as per usual, the GUI isn’t good enough once you dig delow the surface- it’s fine for it’s target audience, but hides things- and lets face it, Windoze is no innocent there, is it, and compounds it by not having had a decent command line for years too.

No, I’m going to have a good go at consultancy companies (sorry again Andy), you’re excused from the rant), which is like shooting fish in a barrel to be honest, and my old favourites, Symantec (the fuckers).

***Warning: LONG geek content follows***

(more…)

Remember the days of comment spam on blogs?

I’ve just discovered some cock-end jizzmop spammer has been all over my Gallery. The Fecker.

Evil Overlord 18: Ten minutes with me and a blowtorch in a locked room for spammers.

I’ve been meaning to have this rant for some time. Is it just me, or are the miscellaneous bodily function adverts getting really rather wearing?

There’s the various women who need a big shit digestive transit, illustrating said point by filling their handbag with food, and fixing said problem by drinking yoghurt-based snake oil.

There’s the plethora of “women’s products”, featuring blue water and “happy periods”. I can’t say it seems like a happy event, even from my obviously limited view, and I fail to see how product X will alter that.

Then, and here’s the best, there’s the “little shit kid who is either sitting on the shitter or declaring to all and sundry that he wants to, in order to drop a great big shit digestive transit “poo” with the handy scent of some brand of air freshner.

Lesser offenders: The bear that literally does shit in the woods, and then uses Charmin afterwards, then advertises the fact in Times Square.

One particular ad break a couple of years ago saw my Friday evening disturbed by the whole fucking medley in one break. Charning. Went nicely with my tea, that one. Nom Nom Nom.

Fuck off, the lot of you. I do not wish to know. Especially the little snot-nosed, shitty-arsed brat. Isn’t there someone else you could annoy?

Evil Overlord 17: At eternity in a pool of digestive transit for the media tossers that thought up the above.

Is it patronising shit day or something?

So far tonight we’ve endured a very long load of patronising shite about lowering our CO₂ emissions by unplugging our mobile phone chargers (etc) (while large companies and shops carry on pumping heat into the atmosphere regardless), patronising shite about not letting your kids drink bleach, and patronising shite about all the dangers posed by the festive period. All within about an hour. Fuck Off. In the nicest possible way.

Whatever happened to natural selection? This is why we have a nation of idiots.

Evil overlord 16: The removal of crap like this so the stupid can kill themselves and their offspring.

John O Groats is less bad than publicized, as is Wick. Dunnet Head is cool. The A99 (noted for it’s casualty rate!) and A9 are bleak but fun ( the A99 provides some real hairpins and climbs/descents), and Dunrobin Castle is incredible. When I am world leader, this will be my Highland Evil Lair.

Well, thank you El Reg for supplying me with a link to the Twat-O-Tron which randomly regurgitates quotations from spEak You’re bRanes, a collection of the illiterate, mindless outpouring of effluent that is the BBC “Have Your Say” site. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is precisely why free speech is a bad thing.

Evil Overlord 15: the removal of the right of free speech from drooling retards.

As I promised I would here I attended the public meeting at Walsall’s council house.
(more…)

I’ve been meaning to post for a while about this. I don’t listen to the radio that much, but if I do, it’s in the car, on the way to work. This gives me a bit of a conumdrum to work through.

1. I hate Radio 4. It’s duller than a damp Tuesday in Bracknell if the pubs are shut.

2. The stymistress detests Kerrang’s breakfast show, and, come to that, all the depressingly chirpy, drivel spouting breakfast show presenters. She has a point here, but I’ll put up with them for the music.

3. Radio 1? Just fucking don’t, as they say. See (2) above, plus shit music.

4. Local radio: see (3) above, plus adverts.

5. Radio 2: ZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzzz Terry Wogan. Dull, wittering, dull again, very variable music. From OKish to Duuuuuuullllll.

6. CD. This eems to be the option, but that means you have to remember one.

Then, the journey home.

1. Radio 4? Still Dull.

2. Kerrang. Dear God, does Emma Scott not come with a mute button? No, by the looks of things.

3. Radio 1? Just fucking don’t, as they say.

4. Local radio: see (3) above, plus adverts. OK, Maybe BRMB, just, at a push.

5. The Ginger Tossser? Not while I have ears and a brain.

6. Remember 2 CDs? Unlikely.

So that brings me to:

Evil Overlord 13: The arrest and trial of all Radio DJs apart from Mark and Lard. Any convicted of excessive chirpiness of vacuousness (as defined by me, of course) are to be imprisoned in a locked room with ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ on an endless loop until they see the error of the ir ways.