Government Advertising

Driving home the other day I saw a poster that said 'Don't Join The Army - Don't Make Friends For Life!' The temptation to add something like 'it may be a short life for you or for them' is great, unfortunately I'm too well behaved. I'm told there is another which says something like 'Don't Join The Army - Don't Learn New Skills' as if you can't learn skills at college, at university, at work, as an apprentice. Unless you want to learn how to kill, everything else is available elsewhere. Same applies to the Navy, currently advertising for recruits on TV. You can't trust politicians and your life is not your own once you sign, so don't do it. Peace is better.

More Government Advertising

The government is running a TV campaign to recruit teachers - all very necessary, but why? I know a lady locally who is a brilliant teacher, but she's changed to being a supply teacher because the conditions she worked under as an employed teacher were intolerable. My father was a teacher and I know things have changed in that profession, and not always for the better. Instead of just advertising for more, perhaps the government should look at why teachers are quitting!

BT The Communications Company That Doesn't Communicate

Two doors up lives an elderly lady, she has lung cancer and her husband is now in a nursing home. She has an emergency system to call for help called 'On Call' which utilises her BT landline. Her BT landline is suddenly out of order. Her nephew called BT but their help line, whatever it is, is all automated, can't talk to a human being to tell them that a sick, elderly woman on her own is cut off. He tried 'On Call' too, but BT won't speak to them either. The automated response seems to suggest it could be four days to get an engineer on the case. BT stands for British Telecom, you can't talk to them, they're the communication company that doesn't communicate and leaves vulnerable people cut off and at risk. That's Britain today, that's British.

Update
Later that evening the lady's nephew found a BT engineer working on a box in a street nearby, he talked to her and explained the problem, she checked the line and found the fault was at the exchange, since she was going back to the exchange she looked into it, found some wires had become dislodged and fixed it. So BT that's what can be achieved when people talk to each other, human being to human being and not to a machine!

Advertising that gets your goat.

That nice Rob Brydon is advertising P&O Cruises. I've nothing against cruising, I've been on one and enjoyed it. I recognise the strengths and weaknesses of cruising though. Stops are generally short and you get to do a nice little recce of a place you might want to come back and see more fully another time. Life on board is generally luxurious and fun.

I also spent a lot of my life travelling on a small yacht and stopped at many harbors where cruise ships also dock. I've seen them disgorge up to two thousand passengers who then swamp places like Ephesus and Pompei before returning to eat and set sail again asap.

So it came as some surprise, when watching the telly, to see dear Mr Brydon and his other half sitting virtually alone in a Romanesque theatre with  him humorously uttering a line like 'lucky to get a seat'. If you think that's how it is, think again. Misleading.

John Lewis Has The Honour To Be First

Bought a toy from John Lewis as a Christmas present for a three year old. John Lewis recently asked me for a review so I told the truth, the toy was attached to the packaging with tiny cross head screws and chunks of plastic, the mother didn't have a suitable screw driver and the child was very upset he couldn't play with it on Christmas Day. The packaging didn't have any warning on the outside, saying tools were needed. John Lewis thanked me for my review but said they wouldn't be using it. They gave me a link and asked me to change it, but even if I wanted to the link didn't work. So if you see good reviews on the John Lewis website do remember the bad ones are censored out. Just so you know.

About This Blog

All sorts of things wind us up, getting it off your chest is good for you, especially when taking on major corporations and politicians. Facebook is one way but if you're complaining all the time to your friends that may not be a good thing and the share button there doesn't allow you to tweet.

So, I've created 'Things That Get Your Goat' to get things off my chest and on Blogger the share button allows me to tweet and more. If life winds you up sometimes, be it call centres, arrogant companies, even more arrogant politicians, injustices or Japanese Whaling, why not make a blog.

Good luck and best wishes to all the decent people in the world - that's most of you. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Nil bastardum carborundum, or something to that effect.