i dont pretend to know enough about the conflict and past of their problems with israel, i dont intend any upset by this post, i openly admit to not being able to express myself adequately.
who is standing up for the palestinian people?
the toothless governments from around the world and the UN (another complete waste of space) are spending all their time in "meetings" and issuing "statements" what a bunch of non entities! the best they can come up with after days of discussions - "someone must be held accountable" is that it????
THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING!
is there no country left on this planet that will tell the government of israel, "stop now or we will be at war with you and move to protect the palestinian people!"
how do you face a mother who has lost 4 of her children whilst putting her rubbish out, and tell her "dont worry, someone will be held accountable for this!" she doesnt want compensation, she doesnt want the assurity that the UN and governments around the world are having "meetings to discuss the issue"
she wants to be able to live her life without hardship and without fear, she wants her children back, she doesnt care one jot about hamas or the israelis, she just wants a peaceful existance. is this too much to ask?
i dont think it is... i really feel for the palestinian people, i only wish our governt here in the UK had the balls to step in and force israel to stop the killings. there has to be another way of resolving your issues.
Posted on 06-01-09 @ 10:54 PM CST [link to post] [No Comments]
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British Telecom rant - lookaway now!
BT's website wont load up and leaves a blank page for 5 minutes... says it all about the company this does!
* their chairman's office doesnt respond to emails * their engineers cannot find a basic line fault in 25 attempts (8 times they failed to even turn up!) * their high level complaints team think its acceptable practice to leave a customer waiting for information from their "open reach investigation" for 6 months without reply * they fail to install a new line (as instructed to by chairmans office and 4 engineers) and instead activate the 2nd line alongside the faulty line * they thinks its good practice to then bill the customer for both faulty lines * they have given 4 assurances that the "double billing" issue has been sorted out, over a year later the problem is still happening * it is normal company practice to sell an "upto 8 meg download speed" package - quoting a speed of around 5.5 meg download should easily be obtainable - then provide a router that has a maximum capacity speed of 4 meg download only! * BT staff are THAT THICK, that not a single engineer, high level advisor or chairmans office fault team, realises that the equipment wont download at any speed above 4 meg download, without major alterations to the router they provide to their customers! * BT cannot provide a download speed which meets the minimum designated fault speed level (3.2 meg download in my case) after 3 years of trying * BT then send out an unable to resolve fault letter (you couldnt make this stuff up) and a final no resolution letter... only they failed to send it out, not once BUT 3 TIMES! * BT staff then assure their customer that the letter will be sent out again, but fail to do so after 3 weeks! * BT staff then ignore their customer and dont address the overcharging in the billing system, fix the fault or send out a no resolution letter!
* BT staff pass their customers around the different departments instead of resolving a fault * BT's chairmans office tell customers that an investigation is being carried out with their "open reach" department, then leave the customer waiting over a month without information or reply! * when the customer contacts the chairmans office about this matter - guess what? yep, the chairmans office dont know anything about "an investigation by open reach" and simply promise to send out a no resolution letter, thats right you guessed it, they fail to send the letter out!
* BT are happy for a customer not to be able to move to another supplier, as the fault still exists, moving to another supplier will simply add another layer of beaurocracy on top of an already failed repair service.
put politely - British Telecom dont know their arse from their elbow, a complete waste of space and over charge their customers for fun! they wouldnt know good customer service, if it was delivered in a box to their chairmans desk and bit him on the nose when he opened the box!
being a good old fashioned sales assistant of 17 years, i learnt my trade under the watchful eye of a bloke called chris slater. firm but fair, good standards of customer care combined with taking pride in the store appearance were an excellent starting block for a spotty sprog straight out of school. when i rejoined halfords, i landed in a shiney new branch in accrington (which subsequantly was burnt down) under the watchful eye of one mr wayne hill (the ginga ninja)
many years managerial experience behind him, he took up the mantel of having to put up with me. his prime importance were standards and excellent customer care. over many years, i laughed, as other fly by nights came and went within the halfords system, as they mocked wayne and his methods, yet the branch was always clean and tidy, shelves were always full and well presented, even the mats at the doors were cleaned and tidy. customer service ruled in his stores, meet the needs of the customer, sometimes go the extra mile, dont promise the customer more than you can deliever, etc, etc. mock him as others did (in good fun of course) but i cannot recall a customer complaint against the stores he ran that was upheld by head office as being any fault of the store. you get the picture....
against this experience, it astounds me what is going wrong in the world of sales, where ever i turn! its like i am talking in chinese!
- car is broken, drive 28 mile round trip, mechanic turns off the engine warning light and tells me a fault is there that senior management say doesnt exist. said hell send off "a report" to seat technical people, they come back to the dealership and say itll need new parts and sorting out. no phone call for more than two weeks- no information for me the customer - so i rang them up. "the service department is on the phone at the moment, hell ring you back in 5-10 minutes" i wait over an hour.... then ring them back again "theres noone available to take your call at the moment, can i get them to ring you back in 5 minutes?" they said that over an hour a go and still no call back! "ill log the call then and get them to ring you straight back..." 20 minutes later they ring back.... errrrrr hello!
whats happening with the car? .... i dont know i got a message to call you? so you thought youd ring me up without finding out whats wrong? .... errr yes just hold on the phone (at my expense) ill find out whats happening back he comes 5minutes later .... yes there is a fault! well we knew that weeks ago, whats happening now then? .... have we got your car? no, you had sent a report off .... oh yes we got a reply back last week now we are waiting for warranty to get back to us to tell us if we can fix it for you! so did no one think to ring me up and let me know whats happening? .... i dont know, well call you back tomorrow and let you know whats happening!
earlier today.... central heating switch has broken, needs a new box fitting. have you got one? .... theres lots of them need a part number okays ill go home and ring you with part number then .... ok rings them up later... its an ep2000 .... yes we can get one, for later today but youll have to pay a deposit! but i buy from you at least twice a month i definately need this box ... sorry but we have to take a deposit but i live XXX miles away it means driving back again then coming home then driving back again to collect, 6 trips in total for today! ... we cant order without a deposit sorry
so 4 trips on top of the 2 trips already... in these times of "struggling for trade," i would question why shops and stores are doing their level best to put customers off and push them to shop elsewhere???
what happened to basic good manners and looking after the customer? what happened to meeting the customer's needs? what happened to good old customer service?
in the UK it would seem, its dying a slow and bad mannered death!
"...Polling company YouGov questioned 2,004 people aged 16-25 online in October. Paul Brow, of the Prince's Trust, said the study showed there were thousands of young people who "desperately" needed support. He added: "Often young people who feel they have reached rock bottom don't know where to turn for help."
Of those questioned, 29% said they are less happy now than they were as a child and one in five said they felt like crying "often" or "always". Almost half (47%) said they were regularly stressed."
it sounds heartless to say it, but... wait till todays young get to 30 and older!
many people say im a victor meldrew, but many also admit that im simply reacting to what i see, increasing every week/month. people are not enjoying life as they used to - its as simple as that.
everything is more complicated, discrimination is at every turn, from parking your car to paying for a loaf of bread if you are not retired, from the cost of your home energy compared to your next door neighbour's... life can be a struggle.
theres always a reason to put prices up, but rarely do they come down, income increases slower than bills, so we are always getting worse off. pensioners have paid into the pot for decades now see next to nothing for their years of effort, people waiting for nhs services see people coming here who have paid nothing into the pot, getting treated before them. everywhere you look in life there are talking shops, which drain fincances from our pockets in taxes, yet do absolutely nothing!
grafting irregular hours and weekends just to keep the wolf from the door, its a struggle.
in all walks of life, everything from making pastry to the latest advances in technology, THE most annoying anger encouraging thing, has to be people or systems that complicate things for the sole reason of justifying their job! The amount of time human beings waste on totally unneccessary crap defies belief... and if you are every in the unfortunate position to experience a system or set up, it can bring out a rage in even the most placid of people.
some examples first:
plumbing: there's enough to remember in the trade, all the techniques and measurements required to bend pipes, etc. to make them fit. so why then complicate the trade if not to look smug and bamboozle the customer into paying more money, by giving every spare part, technique, fitting, procedure, even bleedin measurements, a different name depending on what era you are from or what part of the country you are working in??? small claims court procedure: its worrying enough being part of the set up, but why oh why complicate everything 10 fold, by having a set of rules for one party at the disadvantage of the other party? why are some cases always won by big businesses in one court, yet are thrown out in another court, despite being identical in the case detail? is it a lack of consistancy? or is it that outside influences are playing a part? or could it be what i call "jobsworths" attempting to justify their own jobs and messing it up for everyone else? a webpage - 2 basic tables on 1 page using a program called dreamweaver, i spent 4 hours of my life trying to find out how to do this procedure whereby i could keep information within a certain table display on a webpage in the end no one could advise me how to do this (without having a scroll bar automatically appear) so i gave up, in a rage, and reduced the information to almost nothing to get it to stay within the cell borders BT internet service: had to format my computer, (because of windows service pack messing up after updating a virus checker) anyways, i needed the details to set up my email pop3/smtp server again. no problem i thought... ill visit the website or give them a ring... the internet service was working fine, yet they had no record of me even being a customer, the wife, who isnt even named on the broadband account, was the name and password holder... but we havent used a password in over 3 years! BT have been trying to fix a basic fault for 3 years! i personally have spent more than 200 hours on the phone, 25 engineers visits, im on 1st name terms with 3 staff in the chairmans office, and have a list of emails thats longer than if you saved every spam email youve ever had for 3 years!
of course, any log in on their website (sorted this problem out over a year ago) failed, and when i rang them they denied i even existed and demanded to talk to the account holder (the wife) i told them i only needed set up details for email services, and they went into a 20 minute rant about how to change passwords and create an account.... despite me already having an account and actually being a real person! is it any wonder why customers in the UK are being ripped off!
so onto today...... simple issue - make a cubed website logo, how hard can this be? on planet earth, relatively easy, in the world of the computer.... close to impossible! get photoshop, design your own logo... ill have some of that i thought... got the program, ran all the updates, we are good to go. found a website with "a fool proof guide" - all was well until i needed to use the paint bucket icon 20 minutes clicking on all the options... no sign of the paint bucket icon googled a few websites for answers.. again no joy they all say "to use the paint bucket, click on the paint bucket icon" and unhelpfully showed me a picture of it..... I KNOW WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE BUT ITS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN!
i changed my approach and searched for where the icon is... no joy, again more pictures of what it looks like, but no advice on where to find it. even in the programs own help files, it does not tell you where the icon actually is.
after more than an hour, in the small print of about the 14th page of "help" postings, a lady saved the day! "... i know it sounds stupid, but i cannot find the paint bucket icon!" not stupid at all my love, welcome to the world of geeks and jobsworths!
* the icon can be found on the option panel to the left (not the right as all "help" sites and postings tell us) * locate the "gradient" icon on this options panel * right click the "gradient" icon, and the option to change the icon to the blasted paint bucket icon will appear!
i spent another half an hour trying out the advice that adding a background layer was one step, then adding an inside layer (over the top of the background one) can easily be done with one click... this i did.... then by changing the colour in the swatch (again easily done) i can hover over the display, and clicking my paint bucket icon, will colour in the new layer. the only problem is, the paint bucket icon, when hovered over the image, changes to a no entry icon and cannot be used to fill in the layer ive just inserted!
i looked for 15 minutes to find a way of addressing this problem with the program's own help files, they didnt list anything about it! so after spending the best part of two hours, ive got a program on my machine that even the program's own developers dont know how to control or use.
i stuck two fingers up at my monitor, and walked away, before i got a mallet and bosched the screen to a million tiny pieces!
DEBATE:What do you think of the New Year Honours list?
SENT:31-Dec-2008 21:30
COMMENT:"take the awards out of the politicians hands and let the queen pick them, a knighthood for services to the insurance world? how much has he given to the labour party over the years???"
COMMENT STATUS:Rejected
bearing in mind that several donators to tony blair schemes and projects were given awards in the honours list and the subsequant police investigation into it, i thought my comment was a perfectly legitimate one to make? how did the BBC handle it?
It disappeared from the comment records for 3 days, then appeared in the comment list and was "rejected" a rejected status means it broke "the BBC house rules" ie, was abusive or contained language thats not appropriate.... looks like the BBC dont allow people to be critical of the government nor its actions in giving honours to people who may have donated funds to their party either!
started a little part time job - found out it would take me more than 7 years to train as a teacher (longer than a doctor) - given increased hours and introduced to some stark facts regarding what teachers have to put up with! waited almost 3 months for a CRB check to come through - ended the year stepping in for santa hehe
friends lost - stepdad billy ("try that one!") and family friend stephen (heart of gold) both good people, both are sadly missed. we had the joys and excitement of expecting a new sprog, only for it not to be our time and heartbreak for us - the longest three weeks weve ever experienced - we are thankful for what we have though and who knows what the future will bring
then we had the fantastic news of a new addition in the family, another little nephew arrived!
money has been tight, helped by lucky foresight in 2007 and locking all the bills down - penny pinchers was started and has saved family and friends (online and in real life) over £1700 so far! we took on a high street bank in court... and won! (very nerve racking but worth it to see the look on the solicitor's mush!)
the garden turned into a jungle hehe - be careful with poppies they grow everywhere! we had a strawberry crop, lemon plants and banana bushes grow from cuttings - we rebuilt the habitat and a cat moved in! we lost "the mound" to a neighbour - found homes (for free) for most of the furniture the van trips came across - we said goodbye to the ford focus (and then wished we hadnt as its replacement isnt half as good)
travels... we paid visits to france and holland, we got lost in antwerp (belgium) - we discovered how contrasting germany is as we drove across it - we took deep breaths as we passed through the beautiful country of poland, including warsaw in rush hour traffic (and witnessed how dangerous the roads can be!) - we went on to Lietuva thats lithuania to you - mistaking an army baracks for a park was not a good idea hehe we watched the olympic games from 4 different countries (and cheered lithuania on at basketball with the locals) we visited the russian border - then made our way back through the stunning north east poland towards gdansk - the polish people proved to be even more friendly than i had been telling everyone they were!
RAIN! was everywhere - looks like the earth is starting to move back on its axis as the weather here froze and snow fell and stayed around for a couple of weeks - summer was another wash out!
in sport - yet another fruitless season for the pool - but what a joy to see portsmouth and cardiff fighting it out at wembley for the fa cup (the game itself was an anti climax) victories for "private" sports at the olympics, not a lot for track and field events taught in schools, but victories for cycling, rowing, etc. wimbledon was excellent, nadal no doubt wowed the gerls? - it was spains year as they took the european championship as well - for me the star of the tennis year was Laura Robson, our new junior wimbledon champion! (at last)
Laura battered her way through the rounds, up against players alot more experienced and older than her, yet came through and won, she would have got my vote had she been in the sports personality of the year award (she should have won the young sports personality of the year at least!)
and finally.... christmas, hectic build up finally sat down at 5pm on christmas eve - had an absolute blast, great food and beers, few presents and enough sleep to last me a year. new years was a family affair, as always, chilled out few drinks etc, with a couple of neighbours popping round, settling into 2009 nicely.
where ever you are in the world, I hope you have a healthy and happy 2009... happy new year!
the whole honours set up is becoming a joke (just as the sports personality of the year award has become a spin machine for the government!)
dont get me wrong, im sure chris hoy grafted his balls off, and to win 3 gold medals is extraordinary, but a sir? how many other sports people do you know of that have succeeded in three events they hadnt trained for until a few months before the olympics? lewis hamilton - youngest formula one world champion after a mental season of graft all over the world culminating in a thrilling finish on the last corner of the last race, what does he have to do to be knighted? well deserved, hoy's success at the sports personality, (if anything he would have been the only one nominated) in a sport that has seen its lottery funding cut in the past 5 years, i suppose the constant promotion of the olympic medalists (as its the only sport the bbc seems to have these days) on the sports personality of the year awards show, showed?
ben ainslie's monumental effort to win silver, gold, gold, gold at the past 4 olympic games... no knighthood? some swimmer who constantly harps on about shoes is honoured? (can you name her world class closest rival, in either of her events? nope neither can i!)
im finding the whole "pro" olympic bandwagon a bit sick, they even had to wait for a staged managed bus top celebration, which took part in october.. pathetic. "...Revellers celebrating New Year's Eve will need to wrap up warm to withstand the freezing temperatures forecast for much of the UK."
ive got news for ya weather/media people... ITS WINTER! hardly headline news now is it... get a grip! "Standard Life boss Sandy Crombie has received a knighthood for services to insurance"
you mean hes been knighted for doing his job? insurance agents, come just below car salesmen and estate agents, and just above banking chiefs on the list of most self centred inbreds who deserve to be hit in the nads with a mallet top ten list! if hes that good at what he does, then why has my buildings insurance suddenly shot up by 24% for the coming year?
could it be the insurance industry is RIPPING US ALL OFF??? shame they didnt insure woolies, then maybe those thousands of workers would still have jobs to goto? and finally.......
"....Two surveys offer a mixed picture of the health of the UK's largest company pension schemes in 2008.
Business advice group Deloitte estimates that the pension schemes of the 100 biggest companies are in deficit by £130bn.
But a separate study by Aon Consulting says the top 200 companies' schemes are in the black, although they use different accounting techniques.
Both groups suggest that pension funds remain volatile in the current climate."
so no mention of the effect on peoples pensions (maturing now and in the future) of gordon brown's £55 billion pounds raid then?
love the way that business is still advising us about financial prospects and various markets... after what business has done to us already, using their "know how" i wouldnt trust them to look after an apple! useless pillocks!
at first glance, youd think it would be a crazy idea! but imagine, someone using penny pinchers layout and ideas for their own "community" website, to extract yet more money from its members, has left me with a bit of a dilemma!
Background info: - i was a member of a local "community" forum until early 2008, and when commission links were added (without permission) to some of my posts to the forum, (disguising the commission aspect and where the links were taking the user) i objected. the owner of this so called forum, prefered to move my objection and leaving post to a members only part of the forum so guests to the site could not see what this person was upto. the owner also then preferred to communicate via private email (why didnt they want other members of the forum to see what he was admitting to?) and after a frank exchange he "declared the matter closed!"
- i asked for all posts and membership to be cancelled, to this day they have not actioned this, as i will not be part of a "community" forum which is nothing more than a marketing scam, making money off the back of the friendly members who post there and take it at face value.
- the usual rubbish about "increasing server costs" are used to justify what i see as blatant misleading of people who are unaware of what the website "community" forum has been set up to do.. EARN THE OWNER MONEY!
everywhere you look at the site, the marketing factor stands out a mile: * the gallery is registered with wikipedia for the area * commission links which redirect people to other forum address links, when they are going through an affiliate * no information regarding traffic selling and paying for google adverts * paid for promotion with search engines * cookie dropping on commission paid links
the list is endless.
so i did some digging. interesting things came to light: * starting a post with a question on croatia, 3 days after launching a croatia holiday website (packed full of croatia information) * the owner of the "comunity" forum, encourages the forum members to use the links that generate commission for the owner, but for the previous 18 months, they had been running another website that has a whole host of discount codes for businesses, yet the owner didnt want the forum members to know about it (and still doesnt)
so i set up penny pinchers... where people can get information and make their own decisions based on FACTS and not be conned by a marketing set up.
now for the dilemma: since setting up penny pinchers, just as the "community" forum website has done before - stealing ideas and layouts according to other local community forums (right down to the questions the owner and moderators post to the forum) - the "community" forum owner has been stealing ideas directly from penny pinchers, to use on their "community" website!
penny pinchers introduced a gardening section..... weeks later, so did the "community" forum penny pinchers introduced a money saving section.... weeks later, so did the "community" forum penny pinchers introduced a basic list of companies it has links to.... now the "community" forum has done the same
the dilemma is, these are being used to raise yet more money from the members there! even when a member asks about being redirected to another page of the website (ie, disguised links) they are not told about how when the link is clicked it leaves a cookie on their computer!
the members are good people, they dont deserve to be used by this website!
these are comments by people in response to the question: Have you been shopping in the boxing day sale?
I was in a major DIY store this afternoon - a petrol trimmer had gone up by about £25 !! It was £89.99 a couple of weeks ago and was "reduced" from £130 to £115 today. Buyer beware !! ----------------------------------- I bought a pair of jeans, went into most of the stores and it appeared they haven't reduced the price of their clothes to the full extent. In Zaavi I noticed they put out boxes of DVDs out to lure consumers into thinking they were a bargin, however, when I asked the sales assisstant said they were the same price as before christmas. It appears to be a con as they will reduce them in a few weeks I have heard! ----------------------------------- What slow learners consumers are! Sales means "huge reductions" of what? 50% off, prices made up in the first place and called "SRP". Tacky Chinese products bought in for pence, in the "sale" for pounds. Products listed as "only" 649, saving you £300 . 649 what? Gumbo beans! Merchandising and "offers" to mislead. Discontinued products at "amazing" prices, amazingly high! No I will not be going to the sales,I will save the petrol, parking, cattle market,money and hassle! ---------------------------------------- If shops can reduce their prices by so much ( not that they actually have - they never existed at the full price in the first place ) and still make a profit then what does that tell you ? It tells you that they were more than happy to rip the consumer off for years. Now the tables have turned and they don’t like it one bit, my heart bleeds for them ---------------------------------------- The sale discounts are so large because the prices are over inflated in the first place. Let’s get back to the right price to start with. Believe me the sale prices are not what they seem to be. A retailer of over 30 years. ---------------------------------------- Why can't these sales be left to January? Up until the 1980s I can remember practically everything being closed on Boxing Day.
I feel sorry for the shop workers who cannot enjoy a proper Christmas break. Bloody consumerism! ---------------------------------------- If anything the sales show just how badly we've been ripped off over the years. I've seen things reduced from £999 to £399 - if the shop can sell at £399 and still make a profit, why do people buy at all at full sticker price?
Maybe the banks shouldn't the only targets of the peoples' rage. --------------------------------------- No such thing as a sale in retail. Its overpriced and people buy it, retail makes a huge profit. its reduced and retail sell more and still make as much overal profit. I am amazed how people believe the prices of the dodgy furniture store. Was £1600. Reduced to £1200 and now £600. Pay notrhing for 12 months and then interest free. Still a profit at £600 but £1000 less profit than before. Interest free but read the samll print. Not as it appears. Rip off more like it. ----------------------------------------------- Didn't Christmas hit everyone hard enough? ----------------------------------------------- I think it's time our shops were made to close on Boxing day and New years day, These poor shop workers need a break from dealing with the public and yes I know fire, police, ambulance, hospitals workers and our armed forces have to work for which I am truly grateful but in all honesty do we really need to go shopping. ---------------------------------------------- I went to Debenhams who had a "sale" at 7am this morning, only to find the prices were no lower than they were on Christmas Eve. As for "up to 70% off" - I don't think so!!! Just a load of hype and getting you into the store under false pretences. ---------------------------------------------- How naive can some people be? You don't 'save' money by going to sales! You 'save' money by not spending it in the 1st place! ---------------------------------------------- The prices are more expensive than 2 months ago.
I bought my wife a GPS for xmas (what she wanted). It was advertised in one store at £90, then prior to the sales it became £130 and is in the sale at its original price. I purchased one at normal price in Argos at £59 with a free accesory pack valued £30. This is similar with most stores for any type of goods, a bargain is only worth what your willing to pay. Shops are getting rid of old stock and making a profit. ----------------------------------------------- If the experts have got it right then this whole year and possibly next year will be sale time at the shops. The 50% or better deals just prove that we are being ripped off by retailers and its about time the consumer started to get there money's worth. ---------------------------------------------- Boxing Day sales are really unnecessary since there's no meaning to them anymore. Originally, these sales were specifically to offload winter stock in readiness for the forthcoming spring activity - now, retailers buy in cheap foreign imports for the purpose of the January sales. A waste of time, effort and consumer money. When will the British public realise that anything imported from the far east usually attracts a retailer mark up of 75%+. Get real, save money for the hard times ahead. ------------------------------------------- No. The 'sales' are discounted rubbish that the retailers were reducing before Christmas. Checked a number of stores online today and all the things I want are not discounted. So much for retailers wanting my business. ------------------------------------------- The Boxing Day Sales are just a Gimmick! -------------------------------------------- Sales what a con, these people think that marking something as reduced will entice people into buying goods that are just as expensive as they were before Xmas, i have been in a shoe shop and seen a marked pair of shoes at £12, the ticket was removed and another added marked £10 reduced from £17. OK a reduction but also a con --------------------------------------------- "Has anyone else noticed since the so called reduction in VAT that prices have all gone up by roughly a £ ???"
Mostly because of the falling pound. Just about everything imported now costs proportionately more than the VAT decrease. ------------------------------------------ What SALES?
Marking up the price by 70% during the year only to then offer a 70% SALE in the SALES is not a SALE.
No wonder some retailers are going bust. They have wanted to make money whichever way they can even if it meant trying to be cunning they have finally lost their long fraudulent battle against the shopper and as a result some are now going bust.
The populous has finally woken up to the treachery. ------------------------------------------------ Fascinating to see press reports of how busy the sales are even though most of those reports were written before stores opened their doors.... is it all just hype for the retail industry?
Wait till January... by that time they will cut prices to get enough cash to cover wage costs or go under (analysts predict 12-15 major retailers will collapse in the next few weeks). ------------------------------------ No. Most shops just reduce items that are deliberately over-priced anyway. The cost of living has gone crazy this last year and government figures on inflation are just a joke ! Even with 30% off most buys are more expensive than they were a year ago. Stores that falsely mis-represent "sales bargains" should be prosecuted.
just sat down after tea on christmas eve, the last present has been given (for people outside the home) the last trip to the shops has been done, the last bits are in the cupboard/fridge etc and sorted, now my tea is settling (good old fashioned egg and chips mmmm)
i love christmas, not for deep religious reasons (although they are important) but because of the opportunities available to surprise people!
its the one time of the year when i dont need an excuse to present a gift to someone i know, who doesnt expect anything, or have to give one back, etc. each year, with the circle of friends and family straggled everywhere, i try to create one "happy face" with a special gift out of the ordinary, that they had no idea was going to happen. normally, i manage to do this once or twice every year.
this year, has been different!
i dont know if its the credit crunch or things being generally tight, but kindness towards others seems to be fashionable again... not that it ever went out for some of us. people havent bought the endless packets of tosh from the shelves this year, or let the powers of business dictate what we shall buy for others as gifts, people appear to have given gifts that are useful and wanted, gifts that are of actual benefit of the person for whom they are intended... instead of just grabbed from a shelf without thought.
but something has changed for the better that beats even this...
whilst out and about this week, in various towns from as far away as barrow in furness, to down the local market in accrington, people actually wished me a merry christmas! without prompting or being told to, its as if they are now more concerned with how people are doing. ive bumped into old friends and family, whom years have passed since i last spoke to them, and it was as if id seen them only yesterday.
could it be that the worm of genuine human kindness is finally turning back in favour of the addage: what goes around comes around if it is, then its about time!
if everyone helped just one person, then noone would need help.
as christmas eve turns into christmas day, all thats left is that cosey feeling here, and to wish all of you, friends and family alike, a warm and wonderful MERRY CHRISMAS, have the best one ever!
Posted on 24-12-08 @ 08:36 PM CST [link to post] [No Comments]
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