rARsh!

I’m back - inevitably I need to let off steam

Hats off to Abbey.

“The depth of Santander’s experience and the strength of Abbey in the UK can only be good news for both shareholders and customers, who will benefit from better products and service as part of one of the world’s biggest banking groups”

I beg to differ.

It’s rare that a company manages to be both incompetent and officious so I feel that due recognition should be paid to this particular bunch of fuckwitted baboons¹.

I was especially delighted by their member of staff’s explanation of why Wuglums and I had to re-prove our identity due to some information not having been transferred when certain accounts were moved from an Abbey computer system to a Santander computer system.

“But why is that our problem? It’s your system that’s at fault.” was my perfectly reasonable challenge.

“No, it’s a Santander system.”

“YOU’RE PART OF SANTANDER!”

I hadn’t meant to raise my voice so suddenly (although I had planned to complain loudly to anyone who would listen about what we’d thought was just a delay to their issuing of paperwork rather than the incompetence which had been readily admitted) but it was well deserved. I didn’t mention it at the time for some reason but this is the same company who initially blamed the delay on my having been served (back in April or May) by a member of staff who had since left their employ- as if that, too, was in some way my fucking fault! I’ve heard of companies trying to get away from a “blame culture” but Abbey seem to have misinterpreted this to mean that they cannot be blamed for anything and that it’s always the customer who has to be inconvenienced.

The bank admits ’service has not been good enough’ and acts to tackle its backlog

If you have any financial connection whatsoever with Abbey I would strongly recommend that you sever it with indecent haste. I wouldn’t trust them to manage my worst enemy’s birthday party let alone any aspect of my finances.

There - that feels better.

¹ No offence meant to baboons who are not working for Abbey

Excellent

As nobody doesn’t know me then there’s no longer any need for subterfuge, is there?

I’ll no longer be able to rant about certain things (and certain people), but that’s probably a Good Thing. Come visit the new home at http://www.<My Forename><My Surname>.com once you’ve made the appropriate substitutions and dropped the ‘<’ ‘>’ signs in that URL, of course - I haven’t registered www.forenamesurname.com.

I’d put a link in but you know how it is. Wouldn’t want some folk to find rARsh (or AFS or Criticise.Me for that matter).

If you’re interested, forenamesurname.com does seem to be available. I’ve given up buying speculative URLs. For now.

Let’s see who’s first to post a comment at the new place …

Memory lapse

Due to a proven inability to remember the phone number allocated to me by 3 (and I actually picked it out as being the easiest one to remember.

Anyway I still had my memorable number on my Tesco handset. I had the idea of using this as my “business number” if and when I get around to doing anything businesslike.

That’s still not happened, so I rang Tesco yesterday and asked for the secret password to transfer the number to 3. They’re also sending me a new (random) number on a new SIM card with the (sizeable) balance I had remaining on my Pay As You Go deal with them.

Last night I duly switched the phone number associated with Twitter and messages have been arriving all day on the “memorable” handset - the number will actually switch over on the 16th, apparently.

I have, as you’ll have been realised, been unable to reply or post to Twitter. Why? Well, because I asked for the (sizeable) balance to be transferred to the new number, didn’t I?

I am, yet again, an idiot.

But I digress. I have a question from my few remaining readers. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know my non-Lionel identity? I’m just wondering whether there’s any point in maintaining this “secret” identity in view of, well, a few alternative options.

Will you keep still?

Gimme!

That Happy Jack’s not one for sitting still. He’s due to be christened on Saturday but goodness knows whether I’ll get anything other than Jack-shaped blurs in photos. As you can see above, I did try my best to get a photo without using the flash but he’s just far to fast. You’ve got to admire the anti-redeye flash on the Ixus, though, haven’t you?

Anyway, after 16 failures I finally got a decent snap - thank goodness for digital!

More »

A puzzle

Angus, John, Lee, Roy and Stanley are each in what he considers to be an unhappy relationship. Have discussed their situation with an interfering mutual friend, each is now considering splitting from their current co-habitee partner. Each one is approaching the dilemma of how exactly to handle the breakup differently.

One, for example, has decided to take the advice to just slip out, unnoticed, while another will, at least, leave his spare key behind when he depart. One even plans to leave town - by public transport, no doubt.

Each of the men has chosen a unique exit from the shared abode, a unique state of mind in which to make the break, will use a different vehicle type to transport his worldly goods and a different intended destination (either within or outside the current hometown) so that there will be five men, five exits, five moods, five vehicles and five destinations.

Men: Angus, John, Lee, Roy, Stanley
Exits: Front door, back door, window, balcony, chimney
Moods: Happy, sad, angsty, coy, manic
Vehicles: Car, taxi, bus, train, forklift truck
Destinations: Brother’s sofa, YMCA, next town, hotel, mutual “friend”’s place

Taking all this into account, how many ways are there for you to leave your lover?

More »

Proper blogging

An inexpensive laptop, a depressing world clock, Y Gododdin, a cartographic history of religions and it’s gone all interactive.

Whoever’d have thought it, eh?

via WXP news, MetaFilter and ‘im oop nawth

Why did nobody tell me?

The most important social commentary site has been unearthed. Why didn’t you tell me about this?

(Based on this “news” story)

So tell me. Why were you keeping LOLcats a secret from me? Gems such as “Gesundheit“, “This big” and - in a pose after my own heart - “</diet>“.

Oh, and for your “I mustn’t laugh at this, it’s serious” moment, watch this:

KTHXBYE

ICanHasCheezburger.com via Linguistic Mystic via Ask MetaFilter. Charley’s video via Furpile.

Wait, More »

Broken any mirrors recently, Gordon?

27th June: Gordon becomes PM.
29th June: Al-Keystone Kops attack in London.
30th June: Al-Keystone Kops attack in Glasgow.
20th July: Floods hit affluent areas of England. Media notices.
3rd August: Foot and bloody mouth is back … and this time it’s self-inflicted

That laughing noise you can hear? It’s Tony.