Buzzin Grumpy

I first encountered this some years ago while on a family holiday in Florida, noting both Disney & Universal Theme Parks were going to cost me a lot more once my eldest son had reached 12 years old.

But now both my sons are 12 and over I have noticed just how expensive a family day out can be, as it seems to be the norm at places such as theme parks and festivals that a child between the ages of 12 and 16 requires an adult ticket; even in some cases where children, and they are still children, of that age bracket, are not allowed to enter without a paying adult!

I understand theme parks must cost a lot of money in upkeep, health & safety checks, wages etc, and I am happy to pay a reasonable fee for the services I use.  But adult price entry for a child stinks of being ripped off.

Last week we visited Thorpe Park and decided to buy annual Merlin Entertainment passes.  After visiting their website we thought £400 for 4 annual passes was a reasonable charge for the entertainment we will have over the next 12 months.  But as we went to pay we were asked for £600!  Apparently, because one of my sons is now 14 we were unable to qualify for a standard ‘family’ deal; and the smallest of small print right at the bottom of the scrolling web page told us so.

If this wasn’t enough to make us feel we were getting ripped off, this year Thorpe Park caused absolute and unnecessary chaos by charging £2 parking per car on exit.  Even though annual pass holders were exempt from paying, we still sat in a queue to get out of the car park for over 30 minutes.

Visiting Thorpe Park isn’t cheap but it is a great day out and worth it in my opinion.  But it’s about time companies like Merlin Entertainment considered how their ways of getting as much money out of their customers as possible, is pissing some people off.

The Apple iPad has been released in the UK and the usual marketing hype has had certain types shivering with excitement as they pay for the latest stylish gadget from a multi-million marketing machine that has recently turned its fortunes around with its incredibly successful ventures into the MP3 player and mobile phone markets with the iPod and iPhone, respectively.

But beneath these gorgeous ‘must-have’ electronic gadgets there lurks something very sinister; and it’s about time Steve Jobs and his latest gadgets were given more column inches for the way they are reversing the freedoms open source, mobile phones and now personal computers have enjoyed in the past by the draconian and restrictive measures Apple has placed on third-party software written for Apple products.

It started with the iPhone and is now present with the iPad.  All software for both products is sold exclusively through Apple’s iTunes Store – possibly the worst piece of software in the history of programming.  It is clunky, regularly doesn’t work properly, attempts to control all the music files on my laptop and has me praying it will work and won’t ‘lock’ my mobile phone with every software upgrade.  But exclusivity means that once you’ve bought an iPhone or iPad (and they are great products) you have to use this shit software.

Furthermore, as a developer you have to submit your software for Apple’s approval; and if successful pay Apple a whopping 30% of all sales profit!

The freedom brought to anyone who has a computer and an internet connection to choose what software programs they use on their own computers has been eroded and replaced by an exclusivity that aligns Apple with totalitarian dictators.  Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of the way Steve Jobs has been able to manipulate western civilisation with a great marketing plan and a cunning strategy for world domination.

Along with Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg, I want to see Apple exposed for their underhanded tactics.  The simple answer is to not use either.  But the iPhone is the best mobile phone I have ever had.  I just want to be able to choose to add the software of my choice and not to use iTunes.

The 1930’s had Hitler and Stalin.  Today we have Zuckerberg and Jobs!

We can all get grumpy and moan about sharing a public space with the anti-social behaviour of a teenage hooded monster. Designer trainers sprawled across seats and a loud, repetitive trebling noise emanating from little white earphones. But what annoys me more is sharing public space with a responsible looking adult who probably shares my disapproval of this type of anti-social behaviour, who hasn’t got the decency or dignity to practise his or her own social manners in a public space.

Yesterday evening I was on a train to London during rush hour.  The train was at least half full when a well dressed businessman complete with suit, tie and umbrella boarded the train & sat opposite me. For five minutes he stared out the window.  But then he decided to pick his nose, and not in a discrete half-wipe half-picking way; first one nostril then the other. Searching so high I thought he was going to pull his eyeballs out.

If that wasn’t disgusting enough, he studied his finger after each exploration, and then flicked whatever he had retrieved onto the floor between us.  Then straight into his ears with a similar rummage; and again with each he flicked whatever waste he had found onto the floor between us.

What a disgusting individual.  Not a teenager, not a tramp but a well dressed man in a business suit.  The words judgement, books and covers come to mind.

No doubt he was on his way to win a big contract over an expensive meal at an exclusive restaurant in town.  And the first thing he was going to do was to shake his client’s hand!

Yesterday a traffic jam and gridlock was caused by the Blackwall Tunnel into Kent & two lanes of the A13 into Essex being closed simultaneously.

Last night a friend and I had an enjoyable and pleasant evening out in east London watching the band Dreadzone. My friend had decided to drive and very surprisingly we found a parking space close to the Cargo Club in Rivington Street.  Everything was going well until I offered to pay the parking meter.

Can you believe it was £4 per hour to park in a backstreet at 8.30pm?  Furthermore, it didn’t take bank notes! We only had £8 of change which meant we had to miss the end of the gig to get back to the car in case some evil bastard had clamped it.

If that didn’t make me grumpy enough, as we started on our trip home to Kent, a journey that should only take approximately 30 minutes at that time of day, the Sat Nav told us to make a detour as the road ahead two miles was closed.  A detour still brought us close to the Blackwell Tunnel which was closed. Great! We have to take the A13 into Essex and across the Dartford Bridge toll to get home.

That wouldn’t have been so bad, but we immediately joined the very end of a traffic jam that was gridlocked, caused by two of three lanes on the A13 being closed for no other reason than road traffic cones had been placed across the road.  There was no sign of any road works or workers!

Traffic in and out of London is a nightmare during the day but is bearable during the night.  But don’t you think it would have been wise and simple enough for someone to authorise postponing the road works on the A13 until the Blackwell Tunnel re-opened? Maybe the road workers would have been quite happy having another cup of tea or two or lazing around somewhere instead of getting on with their job.

Common sense should dictate and be used in times like these. Why are so many people in the public sector who are given responsibility and authority not able to do a reasonable job?

Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary has made a u-turn and will now compensate all Ryanair passengers caused by the six-day UK ‘airspace’ shutdown caused by the Icelandic volcanic ash clouds.

EU law states that if a flight is cancelled, passengers flying on European carriers in or out of the EU have the right to a refund or to be re-routed.  Unfortunately there’s no such law against insurance companies turning their back on compensation claims while pointing to the clause that states this was an ‘Act of God’.

How far would I get if I were to argue I’m an atheist and so that excuse doesn’t have a dinosaur bone to stand on!

Michael O’Leary originally stated Ryanair would not be paying out compensation to cover stranded passengers extra accommodation and food bills but someone, somewhere with a marketing brain between his ears has obviously told O’Leary the damage such bad publicity would cause his tin pot airline.

Do you feel sorry for Michael O’Leary & Ryanair?  I don’t.

It’s like paying for a cheap flight only to arrive at the check-in desk and find there are extra costs to pay because you didn’t read the small print!

Now he knows how it feels.