Moan, moan, moan----get it off your chest or have a chat

[Rodger Whitlock]

I pick them up with my fingers and drop them in a tub of soapy water at night. When the tub is full of slugs, caterpillars, and weevils, into the house and flush it all down the toilet.

So now someone else is frothing at the mouth over slugs and snails - in the sewer 

It's like the legendary alligators in the sewers of New York: in the sewers of Victoria, BC, there are garden slugs twelve feet long, each able to strip a mature Douglas fir of its needles in a single night.

I hope you believe me, because I have a bridge I want to sell you.

[Ragged Robin]

   

[Tony Willis]

joining virgin
Well all I can say is it is as bad as I thought it might be.

The tv and telephone are okay but the broadband router does not work and I have spent an expensive half hour on the phone to India. The router only connects within 6feet of the pc,well it did at first,now it will not connect at all. The lady in India who was delightful told me she had tested it and it is working fine.I had to say that if that was the case I would not be on the phone to her. My bt one works all over the house.

You might wonder how I am posting this and it is because bt have not cut me of yet.

I have 28 days to cancel and if it is not sorted then its back to bt and sky.

The moral to this story is act in haste and repent at leisure.

[Ragged Robin]

Whilst you're considering what to do about Virgin not accepting things are wrong, and that they are in the clear, this is the response circulating on You Tube to United's unwillingness to accept responsibility for damage to luggage in transit!

[Tony Willis]

An update on my Virgin problem

As you will see I am online and in fact broadband is working well. The difficulty is that Virgin supplied a wireless router which is suitable for a small flat (one minutes research on the net revealed this) and whilst I do not live in a stately home I have quite a large house. The router will only connect using wireless at a few feet and in direct line of sight to the pc a situation confirmed to me by my call to India. Given that the router is in the lounge, the laptop in the dining room, the pc upstairs and the printer in another room upstairs this is a problem. Did I discuss its suitability and positioning with the engineer, of course, and he said it would work perfectly
So how is it working you might wonder. Well I am using Lesley’s laptop connected by a short Ethernet cable to the modem which is behind the TV. This means I have to lie down on the floor behind the TV which is not the best solution. I have sent Virgin a letter asking will somebody please speak to me. Believe it or not their customer care,a difficult concept to understand I know, is only 30 miles away in Manchester

BT have now cut me of which is quite reasonable but Sky are hounding me for £13 final payment even though the system has been broken for four weeks. Being retired one has time between the potting to be as awkward as possible with all these people.

[David Nicholson]

.........and I bet your are thoroughly enjoying it Tony (being awkward I mean, not computing behind the TV) I bet there's a max exodus at the call centre as soon as the name 'Mr Willis' is announced.

[mark smyth]

My new connection is with Sky Broadband which is great running currently at 54Mbps - is that good?

Major problem is with the telephone - still with BT. There is a load hiss on the line that isnt there when I unplug the internet do-da. I too phoned India and got hold of someone I couldnt understand so I hung up and tried again. The next person was OK until he said "for security reasons please answer these questions". I told him no and after some argument told him the problem. "The hiss is because you have not put the filters in the primary phone socket" Which I had done and then tried the extension. I told him it goes away when I turn off the hub. "Try another filter" he said. I had already have! "Try unplugging the internet and wait a few minutes" I shouted it gets turned off during phone calls. I asked to speak to someone in the UK and he said it wasnt possible but he would get an engineer to phone me. 10 days on and I'm still waiting

[Tony Willis]

David

my sister has just told me I am a b......rd but I told her she must be one herself as hopefully we have the same parents.

Mark we had the same problem and it was a fault on the telephone line,a bad connection at the pole.  BT kept testing and saying it was fine. I said I needed an engineer and they kept saying I would have to pay if the fault was with my equiptment. I kept saying that was fine and we went round in an endless loop.The difficulty is that they cannot understand that when you need an engineer you need one and the question of payment is not really the issue.I offered to pay in advance! Needless to say it was a problem with their bits

It seems the problem with all these companies is they think cost is the biggest issue to their customers. I have never tried to get things done cheaply,I want good service and the job done well. This seems an impossible concept to them.

[derekb]

The last time I was put through to a call centre in India was when I was stopping with AOL and I am sure they went out to feed the Elephants half way through as there was a long period of silence, what these firms do not seem to understand is if you are old and have bad hearing like me it is bad enough trying to phone in England but India even though they think they are speaking good English the accent make it difficult, even though I was married to a German girl and could understand her and her Friends

[David Nicholson]

...............It seems the problem with all these companies is they think cost is the biggest issue to their customers. I have never tried to get things done cheaply,I want good service and the job done well. This seems an impossible concept to them.

I hope it's not just an age thing but it seems to me that the term "service" is a concept that is not understood in virtually all aspects of society these days and certainly in the goods and services sectors the only concept that is understood is "profit, profit, profit". 

[Rodger Whitlock]

Moan!

Groan!

Grumble!

Bitch!

Complain!

[And what brought that on? wonder the troops.]

Trying to collect seed of Bellis rotundifolia caerulescens. That's what. To be more precise, trying to clean the seed!

Pluck a dried flower head and you get a mixture of dried petals, dried anthers, and (hopefully) seed. Microscopic seed that will pass through my next to finest sieve, but not my finest. Try the time honored technique of gently, ever so gently, blowing the chaff away and you wonder how much of the sound seed is getting carried away on your breath.

Madness, I tell you, madness. Insanity. Frustration.

Does anyone have any secret, special technique to use in cases like this?

[The attached photo does not accurately represent the delicate blue of the flowers, showing it as a pale rose-pink.]

[Blue-bellied Frog]

Bonjour Roger,
I work on white paper sheets.
With seeds on a sheet, I slowly drop seeds in the shieve placed on an other sheet, turning the paper sheet to keep as shaff as possible on the it.
Usualy the seeds rool faster than shaff. A good part of dust and shaff will stay on paper sheet. A good part of shaff will stay in shieve, if slowly shaked.
I repeat again and again until I can't do more.
It's need patience, but give good result.

[Maggi Young]

Sympathies to any Forumists suffering with Swine Flu ...... I hope you are all following medical advice and will soon be better.
I know there is some conflicting advice around about best protocol to comabat the infection, but I have just received this message from my friend Isobel , which I thought important to pass on to you all   ...........


If you receive an e-mail from the

Department of Health

telling you not to eat

tinned pork

because of

swine flu..............


Ignore it.

 







It's just spam.

[David Nicholson]

I tried to get through on the Swine Flue help line, but all I got was crackling

[Ragged Robin]

After a night out on the town a friend was stuck in bed with wine flu  

The pigs are hysterical Maggi - I take it they are all sows with handbags!