Category: Rant

Design Obsolescence – 22 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

22-nov

My car is just coming up for eight years old.  Its had a few bits and pieces replaced since new.  The usual consumables like the oil filter and the air filter every year at servicing time.  Every couple or so years it also has needed new tyres when they run a bit thin on tread.  More expensive items like brake disks, wheel bearings and CV joints have also been replaced when necessary.  Sometimes I use good quality third party replacements, but manufacturers parts are always available at an extra cost.  Occasionally I use them when it seems prudent to do so.  All based on the trusted advice from my local garage.  It’s a good car and runs perfectly well.

My Macbook Pro is also coming up for its eighth birthday.  It’s also had a few ‘improvements’ over the years.  It’s had a memory upgrade and a new hard drive installed, then last year I added a super fast Solid State Drive.  Some from Apple and some from third party alternatives.  Now its battery is failing, so I went to the Apple store in Buchanan Street to find out how much it would cost for an Apple fitted new battery.  I was shocked to hear them claim not to have replacement batteries for “such an old computer”!  Really?  A company the size of Apple can’t source the parts to repair its own computers?  I was told by a ‘Tech’ that I would have to phone technical support to see if they still had any in stock, and if they did the repair would cost around £160.  I don’t think so.  Amazon are advertising a replacement battery for £40 and I’m not so ham fisted I can’t fit it myself.
Since I’ve had the Macbook I’ve become a great fan of Apple, but my allegiance is fading after this example of Designed Obsolescence.

Right, now that I’ve got that out of my system, here’s a synopsis of the day:

Had an entertaining phone call with Hazy in the morning (yes, I did look up the Hive – impressive structure, H), then out to visit the dentist and no fillings, no scale and polish, just a cap replacement and no charge.  What a nice man.

After lunch Scamp and I drove in to Glasgow for some pre-Christmas shopping.  Better to go mid-week when the crowds are at work earning the pennies to spend at the weekend when we head for the hills, literally.  Parked in the Buchanan Galleries carpark with its wonderful panoramic walkway to the galleries proper.  Such a great view of Glasgow (and carpark is cheaper than Concert Hall!)  I headed off to the book shop for a couple of books I’d my eye on, but which turned out to be less than enthralling.  Scamp went looking for girlie stuff.  Met up later and had my introduction to the wonders of Designed Obsolescence – Apple style.  How to kill of a potential sale in one easy lesson.

Coffee and then trudged back homeward, but not before Scamp noticed that Jacques Vert had a sale on.  I’ll give her that, she always makes it look as if it’s a great surprise to see the sale posters in the window.  More girlie stuff bought.  Walked back across the bridge to the carpark and the light was just marvellous, so I had to stop to take some photos.  Such a beautiful sunset and one you knew just couldn’t last, so I made the most of it.  If I’d hurried past I’d have saved myself £1.50 in parking money, but I’d have missed today’s PoD (I’d also have brought the price of an Apple replaced battery down to £158.50, but I’m not bitter!)

Back home I found out that the books weren’t as interesting as I’d thought and have decided to return them (in pristine condition) tomorrow.  After a lovely stirfry cooked by Scamp I made some scones that turned out the best yet!  No eggs Hazy!

Was posting a condensed version of my rant on the Buchanan Street Apple shop page on Facebook when my eye was drawn down the page to a bloke complaining about exactly the same thing.  So, I am not the only grumpy old man then.

Travel clinic tomorrow to book our jags for foreign climes and maybe take that book back.  Unless Apple phone in the morning and offer me a brand new Macbook Pro – top of the range and an iPhone 7 to go with it to make up for their shocking customer service today.  But then I’d wake up and it would all be a dream  😉

Cold and Frosty – 21 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

21-nov2

Yes, in the morning it was cold and frosty and it stayed that way for most of the day too.  Poor wee violas in the hanging basket at the back door.  They rarely see the sun in these winter days and today they looked wilted.  When they finally thawed out about 4pm, the sprung back to life as if it had never happened.

Today being Scamp’s ‘Gems’ group’s singing practise, I packed my bags and headed for the leisure centre where I intended to have a swim and a nice 30 mins or so in the sauna and the steam room.  That’s 30 minutes total, not 30 in each!  However, it was their turn for ‘essential maintenance’.  So far we’ve had the air-con in the changing room refurbished and the gym equipment replaced.  Last week it was the jacuzzi that was essentially being maintained and today it was the hot rooms time for an overhaul.  Next week the pool?  Who knows.  It always worries me when an establishment like this gets a complete facelift.  Usually it presages a change of ownership.  I hope I’m wrong, but I just have that feeling …

After the curtailed swim, I left and headed for Fannyside Moor, just on the outskirts of Cumbersheugh to get a PoD.  Actually I had one in the bag from earlier in the day when the bluetits found the bird feeder had been refilled, but another one or two wouldn’t go amiss.  I was armed with the old Sony F707 and the Furry Monkey.  Hoping his magic paws would do the needful with the IR filter again.  Well, he worked his magic, but there just wasn’t enough direct sunlight to give the necessary IR, so I resorted to a couple of landscapes taken with normal light instead, the best of which is above.

Salsa tonight was the usual mayhem with Jamie Gal forgetting his moves which “… worked perfectly earlier in the day in my office!” Then trying to make up a name for them, before attempting to translate the name into Spanish.  Great fun!

Kizomba?   Hmm, not a lot of fun and I sense a rant starting.
This was the last lesson of the block and I would have thought that Kay, the teacher, would have been pushing hard to keep us interested.  Instead she just tread water for almost all the class time.  Because her teaching assistant was absent, she had one of the class members run the guys through a ‘warm-up’ reprise of the last seven weeks’ moves while she did the same with the girls.  The ‘warm-up’ lasted for twenty minutes.  Twenty minutes of an hour long class.  Then she introduced a new ‘helper’ who either didn’t speak English or didn’t want to be there, because he hardly uttered a word all night.  You could tell the class weren’t too happy when she applauded us all after our first dance and nobody in the class responded.  I nearly left there and then when she attempted to introduce ‘Musicology’ as a topic.  I wasted two hours of my life with the dreadful Samira attempting to make this into a science instead of something that everyone can do naturally.  If you can’t understand the beat of the music, this time wasting exercise wasn’t going to help you IMO.
Scamp wants to go back for a second block of Kizomba, but I’m not so sure.  This is the second week we’ve been without a teacher for the guys.  I like the dance, but if there is no teacher for us, then I’m not getting value for my money and that’s not a good thing.  I’m suggesting we pay the class on a week by week basis to see what transpires and if it doesn’t improve, I’m not going to continue with it.

Temperature is rising and even as I write this at 11pm it’s warmer than it’s been all day.

Dentist tomorrow 🙁

Rain and Sunsets – 15 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

15-oct

The weather fairies were predicting a good day for tomorrow, with blue skies all around, but for today they were predicting blue as in the colour of water everywhere.  I don’t know about tomorrow, but they were dead right about today.  Scamp’s phone predicted that it would dry up around 4pm and it did.

Needless to say, there was very little chance of photos during the bulk of the day and no chance of any sketches, even with permanent markers.

We went to Stirling, because:

  1. It’s fairly near – This wasn’t a day for driving far.
  2. It’s cheap to park if you know where to go – £1.40 a day v £2 an hour in Glasgow.
  3. It’s still got a good curry shop.

Sorted then.  Had a curry in the Indian Cottage and a quick wander round the shops.  Coffee in Cafe Nero and then a browse through the gallery in Port Street then got tomorrow’s dinner in Waitrose on the way back to the car.  It wasn’t a brilliant day, but the curries were tasty and mine was super hot with loads of fresh green chillies.

Although the clouds were lifting and the rain was becoming more hit and miss, there still wasn’t a case for getting the sketchbook or the camera out of the bag.  It would have been a bit dangerous and maybe even illegal to do a sketch while I was driving anyway.  Just another of the restrictions being put in place by the Scottish government.  Can’t drink and drive and now you can’t draw and drive.  Whatever next?  They’ll be telling us we can’t use our phones while we’re driving!  Only joking, they’d never be able to police that, would they?

I started to get twitchy once we got home.  The rain was off, the clouds were lifting and there was a wee bit of light getting through, so I grabbed my jacket and ‘the big dog’, the Nikon and headed out.  I didn’t really want to go to St Mo’s because I knew the light direction wouldn’t make for a good sunset shot, so instead I took the longer walk to Broadwood Loch.  It’s not really a loch, it’s a big pond – manmade by ‘the cooncil’ who flooded a boggy chunk of land they couldn’t sell to house builders or to the industrial sector.  That’s all they did really.  They built a turf dam at one end and let the water level rise.  Initially there was talk of a sailing club and game fishing, but as usual, these ideas were shelved by ‘the cooncil’ as it would cost too much outside the limits of Motherwell, so we must consider ourselves lucky to have a path round the pond and some distance markers.  Compare and contrast with Strathclyde Loch with its Olympic rowing lanes, its sailing club, cycle track, multiple carparks … need I go on?  It couldn’t have anything to do with its close proximity to Motherwell, the centre of North Lanarkshire.  I digress – as usual.  I got a few decent sunset shots using the 10 – 20mm Sigma lens which is simply ideal for this type of shot.  I had something in the bag at last.

img_3445-flickrToday is ‘hump day’ for Inktober, 15 days in.  Pass this and you’re on the home stretch.  I chose one of my old shoes for today’s sketch and since a lot of people are photographing their pens with their sketches, I thought I’d do the same.  Today’s drawing was completed on 110gsm Fabriano Sketch using a 0.3 Micron.

Lets hope the weather fairies are as correct in their prediction for tomorrow as they were today.

Autumn – 5 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

Earlier in the week there was mist in the morning and today I noticed that the leaves were turning, but I stuck to my pledge not to photograph the sugar colours and I stuck to my self imposed ban. As you can see, it was flowers that took the brunt of my photography today. It was a nice bright day with good directional light in the afternoon.

Those photos accounted for an hour in the late afternoon the rest of the time was spent farting about on computers. There’s probably a perfectly good verb for wasting your precious time trying to get the electronics inside the CPU and its various siblings to to do your bidding, but ‘farting about’ is an adequate substitute in my opinion. The less said about the detail, the better.

<Rant1>
Drove through horrendous traffic in to Glasgow tonight to get to the STUC building in reasonable time. Nearly knocked a bloke off his bike.

  • Doesn’t he realise that I own the road?
  • Doesn’t he know that I’ve got right of way simply because I could knock him down and kill him with my tonne of pretty coloured steel?
  • Doesn’t he know that the person on the roundabout has right-of-way?
  • Does he want to have “But I’m a cyclist, give me room” chiseled on his tombstone?
    </Rant1>

 

<Rant2>

After losing my temper with the world, the cyclist and Scamp we made it in to the STUC building for salsa class in time, only to find almost the whole building was taken over by an LGBTI group. What the hell does the ‘I’ mean? Isnae sure? It looks like it’s like Countdown:
Consonant, consonant, consonant, consonant, oh, better have a vowel. Rearrange them into a well known phrase or saying. Failing that, decide on a use for the acronym.

</Rant2>

Now mentally knackered after navigating through the traffic and physically knackered after two hours of salsa I’m writing the blog at 11.15pm because the person who runs the salsa class decided undemocratically to make all the classes start half an hour later. Some people are great at business, but are just not people-people, if that makes sense. After you ask folk if a change is ok with them and they tell you that “No, it isn’t”, then that’s the time to have a rethink, not just carry on regardless. That was probably rant 3.

img_3426-flickrI did manage to get a quick sketch done for Inktober 2016. It was a bit of a crash at the last minute, but it was completed. A partly blind drawing, that is you don’t look at the paper when you’re drawing, you just concentrate on the subject. I did correct myself once or twice, but for the most part it was blind drawing. It probably looks like that, but Inktober is not about skill and ability, it’s about putting pen to paper, daily.

Looking for a relaxing day tomorrow. May let the train take the strain. Hoping for even more late sunshine.

From the sublime to the ridiculous – 1 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

ma013193-flickr-275

Yesterday we had a lovely day.  Today we set out to go to Perth for tea and coffee.  Yes, I know it’s pretentious to go halfway across the country to get something as simple and everyday as tea or coffee – heavens, you can get them in Tesco.  Yes, you can, but I like the taste of loose tea and fresh ground coffee and am quite happy to be called pretentious, after all it’s my money that buys the coffee beans and the leaf tea.  My choice, my money, my caffeine fix.

When we got to Cumbersheugh bus station, I suggested that we take the bus to Dundee instead.  That turned out to be my undoing.  The trip was good on a comfortable bus, but Dundee should have a big sign saying “Under Construction”.  The entire waterfront area is a building site and a sight too.  I really hope the V&A gallery, museum, atrocity looks good when it’s finished, because it really is an eyesore that this city does not deserve.  The result was that we visited Braithwaites for the aforementioned tea and coffee and got the next bus south.  We’d intended going back to Perth, then Scamp suggested Stirling as there were a few more buses we could get from there to Castle Greyskull.  Mistake 2.  A mother and daughter got on at Perth and talked incessantly for the hour it took to get to Stirling.  When I say talked, I really mean shouted at each other.  If I hear one more time that they had a tape of Pete’s Dragon with Ewoks Adventure immediately afterwards, I’ll go insane.  That tape must have been talked about for about half the journey.  If people must hold a conversation, then let them keep it between themselves.

Unfortunately for the driver, they were going all the way to Glasgow.  Luckily for us we got off at Stirling.  We went for a coffee then parted company to spend some money.  Scamp wanted a new pair of shoes and I wanted a new pair of trainers.  We both achieved our stated goals and headed for the bus again the fourth of the day.  Scamp suggested we get the X39.  Mistake 3.  When I drive from Stirling to home, it usually takes less than 20 min.  This journey on a rattletrap rustbucket  bus took over an hour and a quarter.  We visited every possible village and town between Stirling and Cumbersheugh.

You see the the worst things about public transport are the public and the transport.  If you get less moronic public and real transport that was built this century then the journey will be much more pleasant and more normal folk will use it.

I’m driving tomorrow.

Weather was beautiful today and I’ll remember the Lego men made from hay bales, even if I couldn’t stop to photograph them.

Inktober 2016 - 1Almost forgot this is day one of Inktober 2016.  Must get more organised and spend a bit more time on the sketches.  Luckily the first official topic was “Fast” and this was a fast sketch.  Inktober is a great way to force yourself to put pen to paper in a graphical way.  Click on the image to view the full monsterpiece!  I wouldn’t have remembered if it wasn’t for reading the ‘A Year Ago Today’ link.  You have read it, haven’t you?  It’s at the bottom of the right hand column and is quite the little eye opener for me.

A day at the seaside – 16 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

e9161622-flickr-260

We went to Ayr today on the bus, well, on two buses. We were out just after 9.30 to get the X3 to Glasgow. As usual it stopped at every stop all the way through Moodiesburn and Muirhead and this is called an Express service. The only Express part is where it wheezes on to the motorway for about three miles from Stepps to Glasgow. It’s a disgrace to call this an Express service. The only reason we use it is because it’s the ONLY service. Once in Glasgow we ran round the bus station and just caught the X77 to Ayr. ‘X’ means Express on this service because it enters the M77 motorway in Glasgow and doesn’t leave it until it reaches Prestwick Airport. Do you know, it takes almost exactly the same time to go from Glasgow to Ayr (37miles) as it does from Cumbersheugh to Glasgow (14miles). Arrived in Ayr to sunshine and blue sky.

Walked around the dilapidated town centre of Ayr, had a coffee then went for a walk along the beach. There was a cool breeze from the sea, but it was much warmer than the seasonal average. The tide was in and that’s where we saw the bear in the photo above. Really the only worthwhile shot I got today. It wasn’t until we were back in the town I realised that the lens had been set to maximum aperture. Never a good thing to do unless you have a really expensive bit of glass. I didn’t. It works well when stopped down to about f10 or so, but wide open it’s a bit cloudy and not very sharp. A bit like the way I’ve been feeling for the last day or so.

After lunch at Wetherspoons we headed home on the X77 then just managed to catch the Cumbersheugh bus in Glasgow. An ok day, but the weather was good and so was the company.

Tomorrow looks good on paper. Don’t know where we’re going, but the lens will definitely be stopped down.

Not the best day – 8 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

img_3380-flickr-252We woke to torrential rain. It’s a great feeling to be able to lie in bed reading in the morning, knowing that lesser mortals are struggling through the deluge on their way to work. Sorry 😉

Around lunchtime we went for a swim at Stalag Luft III also know as Westerwood Leisure Centre. The new rules state that you will check in with your membership card. You must pay £2 (refundable) for a locker key. You must also sign in for the aforementioned key and must sign it out again when you leave. You must bring your own towel. For heaven’s sake, you’ll have to bring your own water soon. It seems as if these rule changes have been designed by committee. You know what I mean, someone has an idea, someone else has a different idea, then a third person also has a further idea. Rather than choose one of the ideas, the committee decide to implement them all, even if they contradict each other. As you might have guessed, a new centre manager is in place and it looks like she’s more of an idiot than the last one. Once we got in to the pool, we found that water aerobics was in full flow. No room in the pool, so we sat in the steam room while the steam was coming out of my ears. Couldn’t get in the jacuzzi because it was covered up, no doubt waiting to be fixed. Thankfully they had finally sourced a piece of wood and a joiner skilled enough to replace the missing slat in the seat of the sauna. Once the aquarobic group had left the pool, the spa girls took over the middle of the pool to have a giggle and shout contest. I’m going to suggest to the new centre manager that it might be a good idea to make the middle of the pool 2m deep, then the ignorant bastards would drown as they giggled and shouted. You might have worked out by now that I’m not a happy bunny. I don’t see why I should be paying for a facility that isn’t really meeting my requirements. Looking back a year in this blog I’m reading that at least twice and sometimes three times a week I was getting to the gym in the morning. That’s not happening now. It would appear that the new centre manager has taken the pleasure out of leisure. I’ll give it until Christmas and if things haven’t improved, I’ll cancel my membership, which would be a shame as Scamp appears to be satisfied with the changes.  By the way, we returned our keys but didn’t sign them out.  Oh, oh.  That will mean a visit to the headmistress’s room or lines for us next time.  “I must always remember to sign out my keys”.  “I must always remember to sign out my keys”.  “I must always remember to ….”.

Outside it was still raining and we went on a pilgrimage to find a new cable for Scamp’s old style Samsung tablet. According to the Internet, Maplin had the cable, but when we got there all five of the assistants were more interested in getting a group selfie than in actually selling anything. It never ceases to surprise me that this store is still in business.  They never seem to have anything useful in stock, their assistants have less knowledge than an Apple Genius and I rarely see anyone actually buying anything.
Tried Currys – Nope
Tried Tesco – None
Tried B&M – Nada
Drove to Glasgow to Staples and, you’ve guessed it, no Samsung cables. Even tried Poundworld with the same result. When we were driving home the rain stopped and the sun came out for a while.
Finally solved the problem when I went to the bloke in Cumbersheugh town centre who sells phone covers. He also sells old style Samsung cables. Got one, and now the tablet charges, but the rain is back on.

Today’s photo is of a selection of our James Grieve apples from our miniature apple tree. The rest were made into a lovely apple pie.

More rain tomorrow. Oh what fun.

The Lodge – 13 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

13 AugToday was to be dry, and so it dawned. Dry with a little sprinkling of sun – even better. The weather fairies had been telling the truth for once. That said, we took ourselves off to the wild highlands or at least the Trossachs which is a sort of tame wild highlands. We were pointing the car at David Marshall Lodge or DML for short. Instead of our usual route through Thornhill to Aberfoyle and up the Duke’s Pass to DML, we rebels took the alternative way through blue-rinse Callander and over the other side of the Duke’s Pass to DML. Callander is usually a bottleneck on this drive and so it was today, but the bottleneck was caused by two of the boys in blue (with yellow hi-vis jackets and a speed gun) checking the speed of anyone wishing to venture in to the town from the general direction of Stirling. Not that we had much chance of raising our speed above jogging pace because some numpty at the front had forgotten to bring the red flag with him to indicate that a motor vehicle was approaching. That’s the way it seemed anyway. We passed the polis quietly, sedately and well under the speed limit. The drive up the Duke’s Pass was uneventful and terminally boring. It’s strange that when driving some roads, the scenery is much better in one direction than in the other. I hadn’t noticed how little of interest passed the car as we travelled along this road until today. We arrived at DML only to find that, Shock! Horror! they’ve changed the name to “The Lodge”. Now to someone born and brought up in Larkhall, The Lodge is synonymous with either Lambeg drums, Orange sashes and flute bands or groups of men congregating in a hall with a builder’s square and a pair of dividers over the door. I’d never been involved in any way with either group but that is what The Lodge means to me. Orange or Masonic, these are the only Lodges I’ve known about and this was neither. No sashes of any hue, no aprons and no rolled up trouser legs – do they really do that? What happened to David Marshall? Was he ex-communicated? Did he retire? Was he sacked? Maybe they found out that he didn’t belong to either Lodge, and he had to go. We’ll never know, I guess. However, like the Clyde Arc will always be the Squinty Bridge and the Tradeston Bridge will always be called the Squiggly Bridge, so The Lodge at Aberfoyle will alway be DML to us.

We paid our £3 for a day’s parking and headed off to get some foties and to walk the paths. Set up my tripod below the waterfall and waited until the lighting was right. Took a couple of test shots to get the shutter speed and the exposure right before starting the long exposure shots to get the water looking fluid. Then some prick, sorry if you’re offended by the description, but that’s what he was, walks right in front of me just as I’m taking the first exposure. Photobombed by a moron. Really, they walk among us. I wasn’t for moving, despite the midgies which were clouding round me. He proceeded to clamber up and over some rocks. Maybe he thought he was a rock climber. Nah, you need to have a brain for that. I was waiting for him to fall in, that would have made a good shot. I took a few shots with him in different positions to make sure I could easily edit him out later. When I was happy with what I’d got I walked back to Scamp who was standing near his keeper (who was quite apologetic) and said to her, “Don’t worry, the monkey won’t be in the final shot.” Some folk shouldn’t be allowed out, even with their keeper.

After that, we had to cut our walk short as I was getting eaten alive by midgies. We had a quick lunch at the cafe. Scones are good and coffee is brown(ish) water. Don’t risk it if you like your coffee to taste of coffee. If you normally have your caffeine hit in Starbucks, you probably won’t notice any difference. After that we drove down the other side of the Duke’s Pass and on to the Loch Ard road which is a dead end road after about 20 miles or so. We didn’t venture that far. We stopped in a parking place and Scamp opted to stay in the car while I went looking for more photo opportunities without idiot photobombers. Met a group of mallard ducks that seemed quite happy to pose for me until it became obvious that I had nothing worth eating with me, then they went off in search of better feeders. Photographed some wee sailing dinghies on the loch, passed an outdoor wedding reception in full swing (hope they had lots of DEET spray) and drove back home. Bypassed Callandar just in case the polis hadn’t filled their quota of speed merchants.

Dinner was yesterday’s curries reheated and served with rice and home made flatbreads. I think they tasted even better than yesterday. Maybe it was just that we’d been out in the fresh air. Looking for similar weather tomorrow. That would be nice.

Homeward Bound – 20 July 2016

Posted on by Zogman

20 JulyI’m going to keep this short and sweet.  The WiFi in this Travel Lodge is awful.  You would think in this day and age that they could afford broadband for their paying guests rather than dial up.  Unless it’s BT based, because they seem to be having problems today.  They were not the only ones.

We expected, and got delays on the M25, but then we went on to the M40 and there were delays there too caused by … well, nothing really.  I’d love to see the motorway system from the air to see these phantom problems that seem to hold up traffic for hours.  On to the M6 and that is where the big problems started.  Queue after queue.  Some caused by roadworks, some caused by breakdowns and some inevitably caused by rubber-neckers wanting a good view of accidents on the south-bound carriageway.  By the time we got to the Travel Lodge I was exhausted.  Booked in and had a shower and felt a lot better.  Went for dinner in the services.  Oh dearie me, what a depressing place.  When we drove down, we stopped at Birmingham services and had fish & chips and it was excellent.  Today we had cold chips and something that might have seen the sea quite a few years ago wrapped up in yellow plaster of paris, at least that is what it tasted like.  Before you ask, “yes” I have eaten plaster of paris.  The yellow dye didn’t improve the taste at all.  We decide not to risk the coffee and went down stairs to have Costa coffee.  Here is what I wrote in the Costa on-line complaint form:

“I’m sitting in an excuse for a Costa coffee shop drinking an excuse for an Americano from a cardboard cup because the dishwasher is broken.  Although there were lots of ceramic cups visible on the coffee makers we were not offered them, we HAD to have our coffee in a cardboard cup.  I assume this makes clearing up easier for the staff and to Hell with what the customer wants. I asked for hot milk on the side. That wasn’t available either. Probably for the same excuse that cups weren’t, but the girl operating the coffee maker offered to pour some milk into my already watery Americano from a plastic carton.  No thanks Costa.  I’ll stick to Cafe Nero in future.”

I expect I’ll get a standard reply from Costa with a standard Costa gift card which I will cut up and put in the bin.

So, it wasn’t just the plaster of paris fish and the cold chips, it was also “couldn’t care less” Costa too.  What do foreigners, French folk, German geezers, Spanish senoritas think when they visit one of these service stations?  Everything is overpriced and the food is inedible.  I remember the first time I travelled through France.  We stopped at a service station.  Everything was shiny and clean.  I had a jambon sandwich that had half a pig in it and tasted magnificent.  No plaster of paris there, even in France!  France, paris.  Well, I thought it was funny.

Today’s photos were of a pied wagtail taken earlier in the day.  The imposing but falling apart Grade 2 listed tower at the Lancaster services and sunset through the hotel window.  Not much of a view, but just look at those clouds!

This was meant to be short and sweet, but I rambled and ranted on again.

Heading to the cold country tomorrow!

Dull, dull, dull – 9 July 2016

Posted on by Zogman

9 july bFrom start to almost finish today we’ve been labouring under grey skies. Occasional showers of drizzle made things even more miserable although it did brighten up in the evening for an hour or so before sunset.  We got the bus in to town in the morning and found some Spanish sun in Cafe Andaluz, always a bright spot on a dull day. Tapas and a glass of red made the day that little bit better.

Loads of activity in ‘The Toon’ with groups of Street Soccer players wandering around. George Square has been transformed for the event. I might drop in some time this week to see if there are any ‘photo opportunities’.

Got some paint in Cass Art. It’s times like this that you realise how much you miss the Art Store. Millers used to be an alternative too, but the half pan of paint I was buying was over 50% more expensive in Millers than in Cass Art. That’s just greed.

Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but the move to paperless transactions does annoy me at times. It’s nice to get a paper receipt that you can check while you are still in the shop. You can’t do that with an electronic emailed receipt. My e-receipt today was for £9.90 and that was what I was charged in the shop. The itemised bill was for:

Liquitex Ink 30ml Carbon Black £4.95
Liquitex Ink 30Ml Tit White £4.95
Total £9.90

What I actually bought was:

Liquitex Ink 30ml Tit White £4.95
W&N Mauve Half Pan £4.00
Total £8.95

That’s nearly a pound difference and I’m a pensioner (shades of Grandpa Charlie). Where the Carbon Black came from I’ll never know. Where the Mauve Half Pan went, I’ll also never know. What a White Tit is, well, that’s anyone’s guess.
The moral of the story is, be a bastard sometimes, insist on a paper receipt and check it before you leave the shop. If there is a difference between what you bought and what you paid for, kick up a stink. Unless, of course, you profited from the error. Charlie Christie rules OK!