Gripes
Gripes
Being the grumpy old fart that I am, there are times when I get annoyed at the world we now live in. There are things that slightly irritate me, and then there are things that genuinely get right up my nose!
I do my utmost to shrug things off because I’m not blind. I see the world changing around me, not necessarily for the better, but changing nonetheless.
It is true to day that I fail frequently at this task. Apparently age has a tendency to mellow you, I have yet to experience this phenomenon. I try to chill but, there are things that really grate on me and, in true British fashion, I like to air them here. Just because I can!
So grab a cuppa and have a read. You’ll find the jokes consistently terrible and my language arguably crude. Neither of those things is a flaw, but they are a design choice!
ManOpantS® Coherently Grumpy Since 1969
Harrods
My wife was recently gifted a small hamper that someone purchased from Harrods. The contents were tea, shortbread and rose jam. Considering the implied status of Harrods and the prices they charge for their goods, we were deeply disappointed. I can only assume that the toffs who purchase their groceries from Harrods have, in some way, had their sense of taste destroyed from inbreeding, perhaps in some way like the Habsburg jaw. Perhaps they have the equivalent of a Habsburg gob.
I started with the tea. My wife does not partake. I love a cup of tea and have been a drinker of this fine beverage for my entire life. I put the tea into my favourite teapot and brewed it for a while, as I would any other tea. I poured it, added a tad of milk and a sweetener, then took a sip of what I can only describe as horrifying! I have to assume that the tea leaves had been previously consumed by a billy goat and excreted out of its rear end before being dried and packaged for sale at Harrods department store.
Aside from Earl Grey, it was the worst tea I have ever tasted, and I’ve been offered some rank tea in my day. Being someone who doesn’t like waste, I am sad to say the remainder of the tea went into the bin.
The shortbread came next. My wife and I are partial to a nice piece of shortbread, so we sat for afternoon tea and sampled some, stared each other in the face and began to laugh. This high-priced shortbread was edible. Just! But in the same breath, it was nothing compared to some shortbread we had recently purchased from ALDI, but it was a sight more expensive. Well done, ALDI!
I will concede that the rose jam was pleasant. Not particularly flavourful, but it had enough taste that you could argue it was rose. Would I spend that sort of money on it should I frequent Harrods? Hell no!
Harrods, you are extracting the urine from your customers. (That was the posh way of saying, taking the piss!) You are certainly overcharging for poor products just because they have the Harrods name on them. Really, Harrods! Stop taking advantage of the simpleton toffs. It’s not nice!
Authentication
I have had the same email address for 26 years. To access it, I needed a username and a secure password. I have always used the maximum allowed number of characters and ensured a complex arrangement.
Apparently, that is no longer enough.
Now I have to enter my username and password, wait for them to email me a one-off security code or request a two-factor authentication code from an app. I then open the email or the app, copy the code, paste it into the waiting box and finally it lets me in!
It's an email account I've kept secure for 26 years, not my personal banking!
If I were transferring thousands of pounds from my bank account, I could understand wanting additional security. My bank uses a chip and PIN machine anyway. But apparently accessing my email requires an increasingly complicated obstacle course.
And it doesn't stop there.
Why are companies so determined to collect information from me? My real name, address, mobile phone number and who knows what else. Now some companies want facial scans and fingerprints. What next? A DNA butt swab, just to be sure?
I don't want to give you my face. I don't want to give you my fingerprints. I don't want to give you my phone number. I don't want to buy a YubiKey. I have a secure password and a password manager. If I choose to use additional security, fine, but it should be my choice.
Nobody asked me whether I wanted all this. Nobody explained why it had suddenly become necessary. They just make the assumption that everyone owns a mobile phone and that everyone has a phone capable of running an authenticator app or a secondary email account.
And if you don't, you're screwed.
That isn't security; that's a bureaucratic treasure hunt. But there is another part of this that really annoys me. Why do I need to sign in to websites that have absolutely no reason to know who I am?
If I want to read an article on your website, why do I need an account? I'm not buying anything. I'm not asking you to provide me with a personalised service. I'm just trying to read your website!
The BBC is a perfect example. Why do I need to sign in to the BBC website? I don't need to pay them anything. They already robbed me once!
And if I don't want to create an account, I'm quite happy to wander off somewhere else and read somebody else's AI-generated slop instead.
It's not just the BBC. More and more websites seem to think that access to their content means I should first hand over my details and create an account.
Why?
If there is a genuine reason you need information from me, fine. If I am buying something from you, obviously you need payment and delivery information. If I am using a service that requires an account, fair enough.
But if I just want to read your website, what do you need my name, address, phone number or any other personal information for?
Privacy is a right. My face, fingerprints, phone and personal devices are mine, not compulsory login accessories.
And all of this because Karen thinks her Cockapoo's name is a great password!
Is it me, or has all this gone too far? Are governments implementing requirements to encourage me and you to stop using the internet?
Rip Off Britain
Yesterday I went to one of my favourite coastal areas, that being Thornton-Cleveleys. Now, I used to make sure I visited Kay’s Fish & Chips, a small but nice eatery near the sea front. But I don’t offer them my custom nor my money any more. The reason being price.
As of August 2026, Kay’s thinks it’s value for money to charge £8.85 for a mass-manufactured steak and kidney pudding and a portion of chips! As a matter of fact, Kay’s thinks £4.50 is a reasonable amount of money to ask for a portion of chips on its own! Kay’s, it’s a fried fucking potato! Are you mental?
I can’t express this more clearly: it’s a potato that has been chopped up, not likely by them, but ordered for mass catering, into chips and deep-fried! Now, I realise you have costs, really I do. You have people to pay, you have burners to run. But you aren’t going to have any customers left when you put on a striped jersey and a mask and rob people of £4.50 for a fried chipped potato!
Needless to say, these days I take a packed lunch, way healthier than Kay’s overpriced pudding and chips, and I eat it on the sea front.
Eateries of Britain, you deserve bankruptcy. You are rip-off merchants of the highest order!
The ice creams were also quite costly, but if I didn’t buy those, my wife would have fed me to the gulls!
Supermarkets
My first gripe here is paracetamol. British supermarkets have a rule that you can only buy two packets per transaction. This is not based on law but is an advisory from the UK government.
The supermarket staff think it’s OK to lie to customers and claim this is the law. Supermarket staff, you are talking out of your collective arses!
This has never been passed into law. The two-pack restriction is actually described by the MHRA as best-practice guidance, rather than a legal limit. The law says that neither general-sale outlets nor pharmacies can sell more than 100 tablets or capsules of paracetamol or aspirin in a single transaction without a prescription.
However, I recently entered Tesco with someone, and they purchased two boxes of paracetamol, as did I. We went to the checkout, and my friend put her purchases on the counter and put the next customer divider behind them. I then placed my purchases behind the divider, clearly showing I was a different customer and this was a different transaction.
After my friend completed her purchase, I moved forward to complete my transaction.
The cheeky cow behind the counter cries, “Do you live together?”
I responded appropriately!
“My living arrangements are none of your business, and if you don’t like that, call your manager.”
The trumped-up old bag behind the till then started wittering about the law, and was promptly put in her place about her so-called claims of law.
She soon backed down and started mumbling about doing her job.
Well, madam, it’s not your job to lie to customers, nor is it your job to poke your nose into their living arrangements.
Supermarkets! Stop telling your staff to lie so you can implement your absurd policies. Better still, tell them to mind their own business!
The wider problem here is that limiting paracetamol and other such medication, in theory, is a good idea. Except, as usual in the UK, the implementation is a joke. A per-transaction limit does little to prevent someone who is determined to obtain a large quantity, because it makes no meaningful attempt to control the total amount an individual can purchase. So, if the intention is to prevent deliberate misuse, I have to question how effective this guidance actually is.
The thinking behind these limits is that having to visit multiple places to buy lots of packets gives people time to stop and think about what they are doing. But the truth is, if some poor soul is contemplating doing something silly, they are not necessarily going to be in the right frame of mind to be thinking, “Oh, I have to go to multiple places to buy what I need.” Their minds are elsewhere. That’s why they are at such a low ebb in the first place!
I can, during my normal weekly shopping trip, purchase 11 packets of paracetamol without effort by entering several shops, all within a few yards of each other, picking up the allowed amount in each shop I enter. That’s 176 × 500 mg = 88,000 mg of paracetamol in one trip, and Tesco thinks it is protecting me by having its staff poke their collective noses into my personal life!
Source: MHRA: Best practice guidance on the sale of medicines (2025)
Mobile Phones
It's not the mobile phone that I dislike, it is people's attitudes towards the mobile phone that really irritate me.
Question: Why do you think that just because I own a mobile phone that you are entitled to my number?
Answer: You are not! You can ask, but when I say no you can't have it. Suck it up and fuck off! Even if you are my employer, you are not legally entitled to my mobile or home phone number. Did you know that? You are entitled to my name, address, date of birth and my National Insurance number. Notice something... no phone number.
Question: Why is it you think that I purchased a mobile phone for your convenience?
Answer: I did not, I purchased it for my convenience! Question: Why do you think that you can call or message me at 10pm at night when I am trying to sleep or at 7am when I am having my cup of tea?
Answer: You can't, your calls are not welcome unless it's a life-or-death emergency and even then I am going to be very annoyed at you.
Question: Why is it, if I don't answer my phone you immediately think something is wrong?
Answer: There was nothing wrong 30 seconds before you tried to call! So why do you think there is something wrong now! You couldn't get an answer the first time, so you try to ring me again five more times. Just to see if the action of continuously re-ringing my phone will annoy me enough to make me answer the phone! But it doesn't so you leave me a voicemail telling me you've tried to ring six times! You do realise that I can see that on the missed call list on my phone that says six missed calls from YOU!. Then if you still don't get a response, you immediately leave a text message asking for a call back because you've called six times and left a voicemail asking me to call back.
Then because you have my email address you also think, they haven't answered the phone, they haven't responded to my voicemail, they haven't responded to my text, so I'm going to email them to let them know I phoned six times, left a voicemail, left a text to say I'd phoned six times, even though my phone display tells me you are impatient and have phoned six times in two minutes and left me a voicemail and left me a text message and now you're leaving me an email to tell me you texted to tell me you left a voicemail to tell me that you phoned six times...
DO YOU HAVE A MENTAL PROBLEM!
I'm taking a dump!
Delivery Drivers
I live on a very long street. The street is so long that one end of it starts in one town and the other end finishes in another town.
An unfortunate consequence of this is duplicated house numbers!
So No. 1 appears twice on the same street, as do lots of other numbers. One is No. 1, Street Name, Town X, and the other is No. 1, Street Name, Town Y. It is true to say that the postcodes are different.
As a result of this oddity, my house is 150 paces away from the other house sharing my house number and my street name. Only the town name and the postcode are different. You would think this would be enough, but apparently not.
This was clearly a bureaucratic decision of biblical proportions by the local authority. They must have been so proud when they came up with this little idea. They really did a number on us, so to speak!
Mapping services are unable to see that my house and the other house on the street that shares my house number are not the same house! They have been told multiple times, and yet they think they know better and ignore my pleas.
So I have a constant problem of other people's post, parcels and newspapers being delivered to my house.
An almost constant stream of takeaway delivery people ringing my bell, banging on my door at unreasonable times of the night.
I want to make it clear for the reader, I’ve never ordered food to be delivered to my home at any point in my life. I cook every meal myself. I don’t eat takeaway.
This is made all the worse when I raise my corpse-like body out of bed, drag my old arse to the front door wearing nothing but my boxer shorts and a pissy grimace, to be presented with a stinking carrier bag, thrust at my face by a delivery driver shouting, “TAKEAWAY!”
Clearly still half asleep, I announce politely, “You’ve got the wrong address!”, and the dipshit delivery driver says… and I shit you not! “No I haven’t.”
Delivery drivers! Don’t you think I’d know if you had the correct address, you moron?
Another pet peeve of mine is delivery drivers who ring the damn bell, hammer on the door with extreme prejudice, only to state loud and clear when I open the door… Sorry mate, wrong address!
I wouldn’t mind so much, but I have a notice in my window, clearly stating everything the delivery drivers need to know to be able to complete their task and deliver their wares to the correct address a few yards down the road.
My final gripe on this particular subject is Evri, formerly Hermes. (Should have been called Herpes, because nobody wants them.) They are just as annoying!
The delivery company from hell, who employ the worst delivery people I've ever encountered.
Not once have they actually handed me my parcel, even when I am in.
They won't even bother to ring the bell or knock on the door.
They will throw the parcel in any “secure” location they can!
Your front yard, where it's in plain view of any Captain Pugwash who wants to steal it.
In the middle of the road!
In your wheelie bin, which you dutifully placed on the kerb for emptying! So your parcel ends up at the local council tip, and the council workers can't figure out why the waste paper pile is playing Paul Young's “Every Time You Go Away”. You take my parcel with you!
This is driving me insane in the membrane! Somehow, this is considered progress, a better way of living. You know, because going shopping was so difficult.
Royal Mail
Royal Mail changed hands... Again! Since then, it has become a meme.
They should have rebranded to Royal Fuckup. Except I think they should lose their Royal appointment and just be branded Fuckup!
The deliveries are now so infrequent I am surprised they bother at all. When they do bother to make a delivery, they will deliver leaflets for Farmfoods, the local pizza and kebab joint and some random company selling blinds! But will they deliver my letter post? Unlikely!
I now have missing post from November 2025. For the record, it’s now September 2026. That is remarkably bad.
My wife used to subscribe to a magazine about soap operas. She has now been forced to cancel that magazine because, at best, a weekly publication was being delivered around a week late, in some cases a month late if it was delivered at all.
Does it matter? Yes. For one, it has the TV schedule inside, which she relied on for schedule changes. Two, the articles were about upcoming stories being told in the programmes. Those had now aired before the magazine arrived.
So not only has my wife lost that facility, the company that publishes the magazine has now lost a customer.
I have to say, the company that publishes the magazine are just as inept, suggesting she read the digital version of the magazine. Completely missing the point that she wants to read a real magazine printed on paper, which is why she ordered a printed magazine! Idiots!
My credit card bill turns up three weeks after it should have been paid.
My NHS appointment letters arrive late, if they arrive at all.
If they try to deliver a parcel/package and you're not in, they will pop a poorly written card through the door with virtually no details on it saying, “Pick up at office.” They are so lazy that they now can't be bothered to automatically redeliver.
So now I have to go online and fill out a form to have my post redelivered by the same lazy bastard who can't be bothered to deliver it and wait until I get to the fucking door!
For the record, I am normally in the upstairs of my house. If the bell rings, it takes me approximately 23 seconds to get from upstairs to the front door! Often, I find them already walking away! Do I look like the fucking Road Runner? I have a heart condition, if I moved any faster I’d have a fucking coronary! The postman has the audacity to ask me if I am having a go when I ask if I can go to the sorting office and collect the post that should have been delivered six weeks ago or maybe a year ago. Which I still haven't received to this day.
This is made worse by the BBC pushing an article asking people not to be upset with the posties because... well, it's not their fault, is it! Yes, it's their fault and the fault of the company they work for.
They have been caught holding back post. They have been caught hiding post. Taking it for a drive! If you are a Royal Mail employee and you are assisting with this dishonesty, you don't deserve to have a job.
Royal Mail, you suck! You are the worst delivery company in the UK and frankly, that's embarrassing! Especially when you think that Evri exists.
Considering the reliable company that Royal Mail used to be, the current owners should be ashamed of their piss-poor performance.
Smartphones
I purchased a smartphone for my use. Not for someone else’s use!
Not so some company could dictate to me what software I could or could not have installed on my device.
Not so at their whim and without my consent they could inject software they want me to have on my phone.
Oh, and don’t talk to me about terms of use. You fuckers know full well that few people read those and, for those that do, even fewer actually understand the legal or technical jargon you use in them.
My device should come with stock operating software on it. Nothing more. A dialler that I can replace, a messenger I can replace, and an address book I can replace. Nothing should be bound to the device beyond that which is required for the device to work.
Mobile phone companies! Are you mentally incompetent?
It's my phone, purchased with my money! It’s not on contract, it’s not a corporate phone, it’s mine. I paid hard-earned cash for it.
You don't get to inject Mark Zuckerberg's stalking app on it.
You don't get to force me to have Elon Musk's pulpit opinion delivery app on it.
You don't get to force an app on me that is primarily designed to entertain the brain dead. TikTok, I am looking at you!
You certainly don’t get to inject games or anything else onto the device beyond updates required to keep it secure.
I didn't buy it so you, the Police or any other government agency could use it to track my location, nor did I buy it so my next stalker ex-girlfriend could track me down to the exact toilet cubicle I am sitting in.
I didn't buy it so that the government could send me a very urgent ALERT!! to tell me not to use portable barbecues when I go walking in the country!
Really, UK government, it's supposed to be an emergency alert system. There's a hurricane, imminent flooding, a terrorist is looking through your toilet for explosive diarrhoea!
Not something that could be sent as a text message to all phones. No! You have to scare the crap out of people to ask them not to use disposable barbecues!
UK government! Just so you know, that little trick of yours resulted in me turning off your so-called EMERGENCY ALERTS! You complete morons!
I didn't at any point agree to give up my freedom for your shitty overpriced smartphone, nor did I agree to give over my personal details to whichever shop I decided to buy said shitty smartphone from.
I am looking directly at you, Carphone Warehouse. “I am not legally obliged to give over my details to buy a damn phone, you lying pricks!”
There’s another thing! Why must I have an app to do everything?
If I go to an eatery, they don't have a menu because they don't want the expense of printing them.
So I have to scan a QR code to install an unwanted app on my phone that spies on me.
So I can look at the menu for your crappy eatery to order food in your crappy eatery.
So I can then pay you for the crappy food in your crappy eatery!
Would you like to make my life any more difficult, you assholes!
You want people's custom, so how about you make the effort to make their lives easier!
While I am at it, all you companies who insist on getting your employees to nag me for my email address or my phone number so you can collect more data on me! Really, fuck off!
My phone, my money.... everyone else, get your hands off it and leave me alone.
Self Checkouts
Supermarkets have largely removed most of their tills, pushing their self checkouts, for your convenience! Roughly translated, we want to employ fewer people, so fuck you, serve yourself.
I have a few problems here, the first being cameras on the checkout. If you don't trust me to shop in your store, don't let me shop in your store. Don't use discreet surveillance on your tills on top of the surveillance in your shops, on top of the surveillance in your car park. You know, to make me feel like the criminal I am not!
A further point is this: don't have unmanned self checkouts. I stood for a good five minutes in Lidl the other day waiting for some missing employee to be called to the self checkout because I had triggered an alarm trying to buy some glue!
It wasn't enough that I had to wait for a member of staff to authorise my glue purchase. It was then worsened by the fact another employee on a till, doing nothing, saw me waiting and did nothing, waited for another two customers to approach their till, served them and then decided it was an appropriate time to call for some extra help with the self checkouts.
While I am on the subject of setting off alarms, this really is absurd. The amount of things that you get checked on is ridiculous.
I went to buy Christmas crackers last year and got flagged for them. Why? They have a small cap in them that makes the crack noise! Yes, I am clearly buying them to use this major explosive to bring down an aircraft! Because obviously I am the Christmas fucking terrorist!
Really, I understand knives, painkillers, alcohol, stabby things! But what do you think I am going to do with a cap? Blow the bloody doors off?
Retail Shopping
I stopped shopping! I used to shop, but then shops started employing annoying gits!
Shop Assistant: Hello sir, can I help you.
Me: No!
Shop Assistant: Is sir looking for anything specific.
Me: No!
Shop Assistant: Could I interest you in...
Me: No! "I am browsing, if I need your help I'll be sure to hunt you down and take pot shots at you like I'm playing Duck Hunt."
Another problem is the person on the checkout!
Me: I'd like to buy this please!
Shop Assistant: Yes, and would you like to purchase a bag for your purchase!
Me: No!
Shop Assistant: And can I interest you in a squishy toy, they're on offer today, 30% off?
Me: No!
Shop Assistant: Would you like to donate to x charity today, we are trying to support them!
Me: Well, if you're trying to support them, put your hand in your own pocket and stop trying to pilfer mine.
Salty look from them.
Shop Assistant: Would sir like to give us your email address so we can email you a receipt?
Me: No, just give me the damn receipt, I'm fucking stood here!
Shop Assistant: But sir, it's eco-friendly if we email it and if you lose your receipt you won't be able to return it if there is a problem!
Me: It's also an easy way for you to extract my email address from me for more data collection, and it's no more eco-friendly than the receipt because you're running email servers to handle the emails, which in turn are not eco-friendly either, now or when they require recycling.
Shop Assistant: Finally... How will sir be paying.
Me: Cash!
Shop Assistant: Oh, I'm sorry, we only accept Bitcoin and major credit cards.
Me: Twat!
Here's another thing. I am an older man, not a corpse. Yet! I still need proper clothing, not a pair of jogging pants, a Metallica T-shirt and a pair of sliders! Clothes! Trousers, shirt, maybe a jacket, some socks, yes, socks that fit, not some random size 6.5 to 11.5! What sort of sizing is that! Do you really think a sock that fits a size 11.5 is going to fit my little 6.5 size feet without the heel being somewhere up behind my left arse cheek. But as I am not 13 to 25, I am apparently excluded from the customer base of just about every clothing outlet now. I apparently can only shop in supermarkets and Marks and Spencer's!
On the subject of sizes, what's the deal with footwear?
Apparently all males now have size 7+ feet. Because the idea that a man might have small feet and not canal boats dangling off their legs is just not a thing! Apparently I am also completely disfigured because my feet are wider than a pig's trotter!
What's the deal here, seriously, your companies are going out of business because people have stopped shopping in your stores, and yet you think passing off a substandard experience is actually going to draw people into your business. You deserve to go bankrupt!
Don't get me on the subject of the experience. I walk into your shop and get one of two experiences. Either it looks like the set of an ultra-trendy movie, stark bright light, smooth clean lines, reflective glass, chrome and brushed aluminium and, to top it off, absolutely no product to sell. Seriously! When did every shop become an Apple Store clone? You are presenting a shop to sell product and you offer me nothing to buy!
Alternatively, your shop looks like shit, it smells like arse, it's worn out, hasn't had a spruce up in years and where once you had great lines of product, you're now selling bargain basement DVDs, CDs and random paraphernalia because some twat in corporate said we must diversify or die!
Inconsiderate Dog Owners
Oh yes the dog has done a whopper!
I'll just pick up this poop and bag it and then throw it back down on the ground where the bag will biodegrade and leave a steaming pile of shit on the floor right where the dog did it in the first place.
Better still I'll bag it and put it on the wall, that way when the bag degrades it won't get on anyone's shoes, and it will be so much closer to their noses for them to appreciate.
No it's Christmas I should dangle it from a tree like a Christmas tree ornament.
Dog owners, I know it's hard, you know being fucking decent! but how about making a smidgen of effort so you don't look like the complete and utter useless self-centred twat you are!
For the record, I love dogs! Just not crappy owners!
Noisy Neighbours
Where do I start with this one? I have had a stream of different neighbours over the last seven or so years. There are a lot of rental properties around here. New neighbours come and go faster than a squirrel chasing my nuts.
More recently we had a family move in next door. Immediately we knew there was going to be a problem when on day one the mother unleashed a plethora of colourful rants at her other half, the kids and the dog.
Then, night after night, the boy who seemed completely out of control would sit up all night playing video games wearing his headset, screaming at the top of his voice so loudly that, nightly, he kept us awake for hours. Only for him to go to bed at 4am after keeping us awake.
Then at 6:40 am the mother would start screaming at the child to get up. The child wouldn't get up because they'd been awake all night.
Then the child would scream and shout at the mother for waking them up only to then refuse to go to school.
The child's friends would then turn up to walk to school with the child but no! The child would then start slinging profanity at their friends as well.
Meanwhile the mother would put on the radio and begin making this weird noise. I believe she thought this was called singing. Unfortunately for us, It was only singing if singing sounded like someone strangling a cat while farting out the drum and bass track to a Twenty One Pilots hit.
Now, eventually, the partner would rise from their coffin. The mother would start an argument with them. They would then leave or not. If not that would then result in the Police turning up and the partner being taken away! I shit you not!
Every Saturday night, the mother would go off with her friends only to return on Sunday morning pissed as a fart, banging violently on her back door to get in because she didn't have her key.
This went on for two years straight!
Inconsiderate doesn't even come into it.
So please, people, when you're banging around your house in the middle of the night, screaming and shouting, playing loud music, screaming at your video games!
Remember, there are people next door who are being kept awake by you! Hearing every sound including that massive fart you just did. Not to mention the sound of you shagging like a pair of over-enthusiastic mountain gorillas smoking pot and drinking schnapps out of each other's belly buttons.
Oh, and Doreen! You don't look sexy with your fish lips, your fake tango tan, your shelf-like Brazilian Butt Lift, your bleached, dry, wiry hair, and your fat beer belly!
You’re less Miss World and more missed the point!
The Local Council
I am not a fan of the local council; they make arbitrary decisions that make sense only to self-important councillors with a stick up their collective arses.
They recently introduced a new rule that if you require a new or replacement bin, you are charged for the new bin.
OK, so my first thought was this. I've had three bins stolen since I moved here, presumably by people who don't want to pay for either a new bin or a replacement bin. So instead of them paying for new bins, they steal mine. Paint over the numbers on my bin with their house number, leaving me forced to report my stolen bins to the council, who deliver replacements and charge me for new bins after I have been robbed.
I can't stop this happening because the bin men no longer collect bins from the yard, so I have to put them out kerbside where, once emptied, some thieving twat steals them before I can get out to bring them in! Great thinking, Tameside Council! This could win a prize for most moronic policy change in history, but knowing the council, I doubt it.
Another ridiculous problem is inconsiderate, pig-ignorant shithead neighbours.
Who are too fucking lazy to take their unwanted junk to the local council tip (recycling centre). Instead, dumping it in the ginnel (small alley behind houses) and leaving it there when they move out.
This makes it difficult to get the bins in and out and leaves the place looking like a shit-hole. But the fuckers don’t care because they don’t live here any more.
So you contact the council and explain the situation, and I shit you not, they tell you:
“if we can't locate the perpetrators, we will bill everyone in the row for the removal of the fly-tipped rubbish.”
You mean me, you're going to bill me for removing other people's rubbish when I make the effort to actually take mine to the local council tip!
Tameside Council, are you IQ negative, or are you just so inefficient at your jobs that you can't be arsed to actually do what we pay you to do with our council tax?
On a similar subject, there is an inconvenience store across the road from me. I call it this because it’s too expensive, so I don’t use it, but I have to deal with all of the rubbish generated by those who frequent the inconvenience store. They have bins that are not emptied enough, and so, being in an area that is windy, all the rubbish gets blown out of the bins. Customers drop litter everywhere, tin cans, food wrappers, you name it. The inconsiderate assholes discard it without a second thought.
There are pockets of England that are lovely with decent people who keep their areas as clean and tidy as possible. But their seems a greater part of England has become a dirty shit-hole, the councils make little effort to clean up, and the citizens have become less considerate by the year! It’s a sad state of affairs, and nobody seems to notice or care!
Bin Men
While I am at it, what's the deal with the bin men, or do I have to call them "Waste Disposal Technicians" now!
They drive up my road, they empty the bins on one side but not my side. They wander off somewhere and, if I am lucky, they might remember to come back down my street to empty the bins on my side!
But not always!
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, sometimes they empty one bin but not the other. They practically don't do anything any more! The least they could do is actually remember to come back and empty my bloody bins!
Really, it's not hard!
But no, I have to get onto the council to tell them the bin men are fucking useless and didn't empty my bins.
Now, if this was once in a while, I'd think they broke down! They encountered too many road works, perhaps they ran out of time.
But this is a never-ending problem!
I pay for my bins to have them emptied. Just do it already.
To make things worse, I'm actually only just round the corner from the depot! They actually have to drive past my house to get there!
ARSEHOLES!
Again, Tameside Council. Why have a reporting facility on your website if you’re going to ignore people who report bins that have not been emptied!
Coffee Shops
Once upon a time, I could wander into a greasy Joe's cafe and grab a cup of tea and a full English for a fiver, with extra toast! But now most of the greasy Joes have gone, and I am left with Starbucks, Costa or whatever the next trendy coffee joint might be called.
You wander in, queue for a week, finally get to the counter, and some whingeing, whining snot-head with enough face metal to be considered a scrapyard stares at you with a disinterested glare, waiting for you to decide which cup of ridiculously named beverage you would like, knowing full well you probably haven't a clue because you don't know what an Americano is because you're not a walking twat! So you ask for a cup of coffee, you know, a plain cup of coffee with milk and two sugars!
Barista: Sorry, that's not what we sell here!
Me: Well, what's the closest thing you sell that sounds like what I want?
Barista: An Americano! You want an Americano!
Me: Right then, I'll have the Americano!
Barista: Name?
Me: What do you want my name for?
Barista: The cup, so we know it's your coffee!
Me: Oh, for fuck's sake... Anus, Anus Squeaker! That's my name!
Barista: I don't think that's your name...
Me: Well, it is! So that's what you need for the cup.
Barista: It's going to be a few minutes!
A few minutes later...
Barista: Coffee for Anus Squeaker!
Me: Yes, I am a squeaky anus!
Barista: That will be seven pounds.
Me: Fuck me! Do you want my firstborn child as well?
Barista hands me what is essentially the cup of coffee I asked for in the first place, but now instead of costing me a couple of quid, it's called an Americano and I need a bank loan to pay for it.
So I pay, only to be presented with a coffee (apparently) that has so much sugar content it could cause a diabetic coma! It's so hot the roof of my mouth detached and hid behind my tongue, and this, my friends, is progress!
So I learned a lesson: a barista is a coffee maker with a shit attitude who is oblivious to the fact they just sold me the cup of coffee I asked for in the first place! Baristas, less of the attitude. ARSEHOLES! You make coffee for a living, that's not a skill, it's a life requirement!
On the same subject, a friend told me her daughter was spending, on average, £50 every working day buying coffee at Starbucks, that's £250 a week! On coffee! If I were a cocaine addict, I'd spend less than £250 a week!
But remember, folks! You're buying the experience, the coffee is just a by-product!
The BBC Licence Tax
So for those of you who don't know but still benefit from it freely, in the UK there is such a thing as the TV Licence.
Yes, you actually have to buy a licence to watch or record live television or use BBC iPlayer. This is supposedly to fund the BBC.
However, even if you don't watch the BBC, there is a legal requirement for you to be robbed blind.
Why? Because if you don't buy a TV licence, the BBC will inform Capita, who will send round Ronny and Reggie to try and convince you that you really do need a TV licence, and if you really don't believe you do, they will insist on trying to enter your home to identify if you actually have any television reception equipment! They don't have any legal right to do this, by the way. They need a warrant from a magistrate. I also believe they must be accompanied by a sheriff or a police officer.
I'd like to point out to them that I could have 100 TV sets in my house. That doesn't mean I am watching broadcast television transmissions or the iPlayer. (Morons!)
Has it dawned on you that I may have a TV set to play video games? I may have a TV set to watch DVDs or even old VHS tapes, or I simply may want to access some other non-BBC-related material that I am completely within my rights to do so.
The BBC claims they bring you amazing content. I am yet to experience this amazing content. Unless it's the latest news about which pervert or paedophile working at the BBC has now been found out! At which point, the BBC News will announce, "Another pervert has been sacked from the BBC", pretending that they are not part of the BBC.
"Oh, but we are genuinely independent, honestly!"
They claim they are a national treasure! I argue they are not, their propaganda has just convinced the general public otherwise.
They put the same old crap on day after day, year after year. Every programme they put on is a clone of something else, just with another subject.
Then there is Strictly! Apparently, celebrities prancing around with shaved chests and their arses sticking out, flashing their gussets is entertainment! And that's just the women! The same old endlessly boring, repetitive crap every year, and I am expected to fund it.
Nothing they put out any more is worth watching and hasn't been for decades, and so people walk away from it in droves, yet they still have to pay their TV tax regardless of the fact they don't watch terrestrial TV and they certainly don't use any BBC services.
There was recently an advert from the BBC saying, "What has the BBC done for you lately?" Well, nothing, absolutely bloody nothing except rob me blind.
At least if I went to see a prostitute, she'd tickle my balls before stealing the money out of my wallet.
Time's up, BBC! You haven't got anything worth selling any more, and people are fed up with all the perverts that apparently continue to work for you, hiding in the shadows!
Product Packaging
What's the deal with product packaging these days? Once upon a time, the package was there to protect the product. Now, apparently, it's there to stop me using the product.
The packaging is so difficult to get into, it would be easier to break into prison.
In addition to that, packaging is no longer a protective shield around the product.
Apparently, now it's an unboxing experience!
I am supposed to pay extra for the over-designed box in a box in a box like a fucking matryoshka doll so I can have an orgasm opening it, only to then peel off the plastic film like I'm taking the stockings off a sexy femme fatale in a Bond movie!
Then! There it is, the new bath sponge I ordered from Amazon! In all its sexy glory.
I then proceed to put the packaging in the recycling bin, of course, because it's environmentally friendly. Let's not mention all the glues used to build the endless boxes in boxes!
Why does everyone think they have to behave like the twats at Apple and provide every product packaged in a way that it has to be an experience! Money, that's why! Make it appear you are getting something special, when reality says otherwise.
I purchased some paracetamol the other day. Blinding headache. By the time I'd managed to extract the pills from the packaging, not only were my fingers cut to shreds, but my headache had gone!
Wake up! You're selling disposable products, not the Crown Jewels!
Doctors
My doctors have become an annoyance. They are constantly sending text messages to my phone. Sometimes it's about newsletters, other times about walks in the local parks, and other times a coffee morning.
They seem to think that because I handed over my mobile number, this automatically gave them the right to spam me.
It didn't give them that right. I never consented to this. They have, at no point, heard me say, "I agree to receive your spam!"
My number was handed over so that, in the event that a doctor needed to speak to me, they would be able to phone me back. These days, that seems to be the best they can do. An appointment with an actual doctor seems to be as likely as spotting a troll while I'm out for a walk in the mornings.
I have requested on numerous occasions that they stop doing this, and it does actually stop for one year. Then it starts again, and I am once again forced to contact them and tell them to stop harassing me.
How did it get this way? How did it come to the point where I am considering blocking my GP surgery from contacting me because they won't stop doing something I never asked for in the first place?
High Streets
Once upon a time, our high streets were clean, reasonably inviting places that were actually worth visiting. Between one town and another, you could find most of the things you needed. There was variety, there was competition, and there were independent shops alongside the larger retailers.
I noticed a steep decline in the variety of shops during the early 2000s, although it had probably started before then. The first thing I really noticed was men's clothing. One by one, the shops where I could buy decent clothes disappeared, leaving behind grimy shitholes selling poor-quality garments. Suddenly, I was expected to buy jeans with rips already in them, along with all manner of clothing that I would rather burn than wear.
As time moved on, the likes of the Dixons Group expanded across the high street and smaller electrical retailers suffered. The same happened with PC World, which helped push many of the smaller computer retailers out of the market. Competition disappeared and, with it, much of the choice.
Then came the rapid demise of the media shops. Our Price, Virgin, Andy's Records, Music Zone and countless smaller record shops disappeared, leaving HMV increasingly isolated and selling less and less that interested me.
The larger department stores began to suffer too. Many seemed to lose any sense of what they actually were. They diversified into anything and everything, presumably in the hope of surviving, but instead ended up looking like jumble sales. They lost their identity and, ultimately, many of them disappeared. Frankly, I can't say I miss some of them.
As the years passed, the high street increasingly became a collection of pound shops, charity shops, takeaways, mobile phone shops, sportswear retailers, card shops and, if you're lucky, a B&M for a bit of variety. I jest, of course. Mostly.
There is very little beyond desperation. That is made worse by landlords and retailers who allow their properties to deteriorate until they become dirty, neglected and completely uninviting. I've pretty much given up expecting to walk into a shop that doesn't stink, has been properly cleaned and isn't presented like some forgotten storage unit.
Then there's the teenage retail salesperson with attitude, who doesn't understand the concept of looking after the customer, understanding their needs and not being rude. You took the job on; now it's time to represent the company that employed you in a responsible and respectful manner. If you can't do that, you don't keep that job and you don't deserve to!
I recently walked into a shop that smelled so bad I had to leave. The thought of buying anything in there repulsed me.
Then there are places such as Ashton-under-Lyne, once a thriving market town and now somewhere I generally prefer to avoid if I can. The market has almost died. The outdoor market has dwindled to a handful of stalls, while the indoor market seems largely to consist of things I have little interest in buying.
The old outdoor market area was given a rejuvenation a few years ago. The old market stalls were removed and the area was reduced to a handful of kiosks. Those kiosks have now been removed as well, followed by yet another "rejuvenation", leaving another handful of stalls and a couple of kiosks.
All of this is surrounded by run-down premises selling absolute crap, more pound shops, tattooists, charity shops, estate agents and very little else that gives me a reason to visit. Not to mention Stockport, which for some reason has now turned the main shopping centre into an obstacle course. To say I was bewildered by the choices made here is an understatement. It's made the centre of the town dangerous to pedestrians, especially those of us who have difficulty moving around.
What with the addition of a merry-go-round, you can't even walk in a straight line through the centre itself. Oh, but doesn't it look nice. No, you can keep your concrete. I'd rather stand up than get a cold arse sitting on concrete.
This is where the internet and online retail come into it. The retailers themselves pushed people towards buying online, and online shopping has undoubtedly played a part in hollowing out the high street. It isn't the only reason, but it is certainly one of them.
I lost count of the number of times I checked a retailer to see if they sold something I wanted, only to venture out to their retail outlet and be told, “It's online only! You can order it online.” Has it entered your small brain that the reason I came to your understocked outlet was because I wanted to shop in a fucking shop and not online!
Now even online retailers are struggling under the weight of the behemoth that is Amazon. And after all of that, I still can't easily buy a pair of fucking jeans that fit.
High streets have become scruffy, dirty, uninviting places that, frankly, don't deserve anyone's patronage. Why would I want to spend my time walking around somewhere like that, browsing shops that sell nothing I want? Even my wife struggles to find anything worth buying, and she loves a good shop.
All this! And before we even get to the wider problem of what has happened to Greater Manchester.
Slowly, parts of it are starting to remind me of those old photographs from the 1950s, 60s and 70s that showed Manchester and its surrounding towns as the depressing industrial wastelands they could be. Except now the grime isn't necessarily coming from factories and coal smoke. It's coming from neglect, empty premises, failed regeneration, poor-quality retail and places that seem to have lost any sense of pride in themselves.
Walk around some of these places and you see litter everywhere, seemingly left to blow around until it finds somewhere to hide or decomposes into more unrecognisable filth. Buildings are allowed to deteriorate, empty shops sit untouched and areas are supposedly “regenerated” only to become something else that doesn't seem to work.
There seems to be an acceptance of decline that I find difficult to understand. Things that once would have been regarded as unacceptable now appear to be regarded as normal. Dirty streets, neglected buildings, empty premises and poorly maintained public spaces are simply part of the landscape.
Perhaps that's what bothers me most. It's not just that the high streets have changed. It's that the decline seems to have become something we're expected to accept.
Town centres are dead, not dying! They have lost the battle and no one seems to understand that, or want to admit it. Retail outlets that have been shut for a long period of time should be converted to housing, helping to fill the increasing gap caused by a lack of residential buildings in the UK. We leave them like eyesores instead of taking the lead and moving beyond the problem.
We should also be changing town centres from shopping places into people places. Yes, restaurants, music venues, buildings that can be rented out to clubs, or for events like computer fairs or model railway exhibitions. It shouldn't matter, as long as the properties can be kept up to scratch and money can be made on the rental of the units.
It's great having seating spread around. It's great having a large concrete area where events can take place. But if people are not there to fill the space, then they are a pointless exercise.
The high street was supposed to be the heart of a town. Increasingly, it feels like the heart has stopped beating.