General, Michael Jackson

Jabula South African restaurant

Leave a comment

This weekend I finally went to the South African restaurant in Ellesemere Port, called Jabula. I’ve tried to go here several times in the last few months but as they’re always booked up on a Saturday night, unless you book at least seven days in advance you won’t get a table, or you’ll have to make do with one very late in the evening.

So, once again I didn’t bother booking and instead went on Sunday morning for a breakfast cheesecake. I know you’re not really supposed to have cheesecake for breakfast, but we only went there for coffee and were offered something from the desert display. They had at least three different cheesecakes and I can never turn one down.

I opted for the summer fruits while my girlfriend had the baked toffee, and I have to say these were probably the best presented cheesecakes I’ve ever seen. They came with ice-cream, cream and fresh fruit.

cheesecake01

cheesecake02

It probably wasn’t the best tasting cheesecake ever, that honour goes to an Italian restaurant in Ealing (where I should have been going tomorrow morning after the Michael Jackson concert tonight).

The cheesecake at Jabula was certainly enough to make me want to go back and try some of the African food, such as the crocodile stir fry, which hopefully I can do soon.

In case you were wondering, yes this idea was John Chow’s and yes I did keep the receipt 😉

CSA

CSA say I have to prove I’m not working

3 Comments

You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but where the CSA are concerned you have to prove your innocence. I just had a call from a very rude woman who wanted to know why the CSA hadn’t been paid.

This is of course despite my former employer telling them twice and me telling them once that I no longer work.

Ironically enough she demanded that I prove that I’m not working. I begged the question how can you prove you’re NOT working, and she had little idea except for going to the job centre.

As if.

Could I perhaps show her a payslip that I don’t have? Could she speak to an employer that doesn’t exist? Who knows, yet she ended the call by saying as the CSA were not told that I’m no longer working, by me or by my former employer, that I’m still liable for the full deductions.

How on earth does that work? I no longer work at Just Search. I am not employed by them. The CSA have been told this on THREE separate occasions.

She even apologised for the fact that they hung up on me twice before, shortly before she, yes you guessed it, hung up on me.

You can’t make this stuff up, really.

CSA

CSA issue a DEO, even though I quit over 2 months ago!

Leave a comment

It’s been over two months since I left my job, in part due to the unreasonable behaviour of the child support agency and the fact that they refused to speak to me, and they’re still chasing my former employer to deduct money from my wages.

I notified the CSA that I was leaving in April this year, via letter, which you can read here. My employer also notified the CSA that I no longer worked there. You’d think that would be enough for the child support agency, but no, despite being told twice, in writing, they still can’t take in any information and have just contacted my former employer with a payment schedule for a deduction from earnings order.

How many times do we have to tell these idiots the same thing?

The irony is that the DEO also comes with a stern warning stating that if you move house or change job you must notify the CSA within 10 days or face a £1,000 fine and a prison sentence. What’s the point in telling them? They don’t frickin’ listen anyway!

I’ve had it with the CSA. I told them I was leaving my job, almost three months ago now, and don’t have anything else to say to them. If they want to speak to me they know where I am and they know my number. They can get in touch anytime, night or day.

I’m listening…

Guest Posts, Rants

Tesco’s in Congleton can’t be arsed to open checkouts

2 Comments

This guest post was written by Simon

I general, I abhor shopping in supermarkets. It is a fairly dull, dreary task, that doesn’t get anymore exciting the more you do it. Shopping when they are busy is even more upsetting. To avoid this scenario, I tend to go into supermarkets, specifically Tesco’s in Congleton, before I get to work, around 7 – 7.20 am. Unsurprisingly, the store is very quiet at this time in the morning, which is exactly how I like it.

However, it is still open for business, at least that was the impression I got from the fact that the store has “24 hour opening”. So I was rather disappointed to find when I got the checkouts this morning, they were all closed. This wasn’t due to the lack of staff available, just an unwillingness to do any work. I was then directed to the “self serve” checkouts by what looked like a checkout supervisor (the supermarket equivalent of a Russian mafia boss).

I hate the self-service checkouts. My objection to self-service checkouts is pretty straightforward. I work a considerable number of hours a week, so I do not want to put in another 10 minutes at Tesco’s grappling with a machine that doesn’t know what a banana is. What annoyed me even more is that there was a checkout assistant on an actual checkout. Instead of being available for customers, she was wiping it down with a cloth, presumably on the off chance that she might have the ingenuity to open it and serve customers in the store.

As if this wasn’t enough, whilst using the self-service checkout, I had another (slightly obese) member of staff point out that my “satsuma’s were not oranges”. Thanks for that information you moron! She then carefully watched me toil with the self-service checkout until the transaction was complete. Instead of watching customers process their own shopping, would it not be more courteous to open a checkout?

Internet, Rants, Transformers

Sycophantic people on Facebook

3 Comments

You’ll be pleased to know that we’re back on form here with a rant right out of the top drawer of pointless rants, so sit back and relax.

Now, just what is it with sycophants? If you’re unfamiliar with the word, it means someone who hangs on every word someone else says and no matter how meaningless or stupid what they say might be, congratulates them on their genius. People who follow someone around like sheep constantly saying how great they are, feeding their ego, that’s a sycophant.

Now we’ve cleared that up, why am I so bothered? Well, when someone posts a status update on Facebook you don’t expect to have a series of people all ‘thumbing up’ your status update and commenting on it, telling you how awesome you are, unless you have just said something truly wonderful.

For example, I had a few comments on my status update last week when I made a comment to the tune of how “the BNP think that indigenous to Britain means your family have lived here since the 1960’s, and I thought Creationists were stupid”.

Fair enough, that was quite funny and offensive to Creationists and racists. Worth a few comments.

However, when people post how they’ve just been to a barbeque, you don’t expect loads of thumbs up and cries of ‘way to go Don’… yes, you’ve guessed it, it’s our old friend Don Murphy, producer of Transformers.

Some years ago Don Murphy said he’d shut my website down over on his forum, and his sycophantic followers all cackled with delight at his wielding of his mighty powers. Of course nothing happened, Don did sod all, and he promptly banned me from his forum so that his imps didn’t know the truth of his inability to act.

Not content with clogging up his own forum with his mindless comments, followed by dozens of ‘way to go Dons’, he’s now on Facebook. This wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that every status update is followed by the same procession of mindless imbeciles all falling over themselves to pamper to his ego, no matter what he writes, as the screenshot shows.

don-murphy

This isn’t an isolated update either. It doesn’t matter how mundane or irrelevant his comments, they’re all treated the same way as his army of sycophantic followers pander to him as though he were Dionysus and he were about to open an evening’s entertainment at the theatre.

Too highbrow a metaphor? Yeah, probably, but I’m too angry to stop now.

People, you don’t have to sell your soul to pander to this moron. Just because he says he’s had a barbeque, or he’s got some new socks, or he’s going to the cinema, you don’t have to follow it up with ‘way to go Don’. He’s not going to reward you with a moment of his time, or become your best friend forever.

Get some self respect.

Transformers

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Review

1 Comment

darren-jamieson-bumblebeeSorry I haven’t posted in a while but it’s been a busy week. Last weekend I went down to London to the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen press screening and press conference at the invite of Paramount. I watched the movie, and reviewed Transformers Revenge of the Fallen here.

It’s awesome, much better than the first film.

I also filmed the press conference and added the footage to YouTube in 5 separate videos, which you can watch here.

If you’ve seen the film, let me know what you think of it!

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Complaints

Callvalue complaint

Leave a comment

I just had a call from some idiots at a company called Callvalue. This was annoying as I’m on the TPS and shouldn’t be getting calls like this, they broke the law. After the automated message I asked for the company’s details so I could report them, at which point I received a mumbled collection of swear words, followed by the rude sod hanging up on me.

A quick Google found this thread where it seems Callvalue don’t care about the TPS and insist on calling people regardless.

As you know I record all of my calls so will look forward to the next call from Callvalue, then we can have some real fun with them.

I have reported them to the TPS as well, despite not having all of their details. I’m sure the TPS are already aware of Callvalue.

General, Humour, Rants

Revels chocolates features two typos on its packaging

2 Comments

I’ve already posted on this website about my annoyance of people who can’t tell the difference between ‘loose’ and ‘lose’, but I didn’t think a professional company such as Mars would make that mistake on the packet of one of its chocolates.

I was wrong, and Mars really needs to proof read its products more carefully.

revels-sweets

A recent promotion on Revels asked people not to ‘loose hope’ when it came to the coffee flavour being replaced for a limited time only… except it wasn’t for a limited time only, it was for a ‘lmited time only’.

revels-typo

Not one, but two typos in one sentence. That’s pretty damn poor and the sort of errors you’d expect from a primary school kid rather than a major confectionery giant such as Mars.

So much anger, so little time