Great Cons of Britain Pt 3 - Talent Contests

Whilst some busy-bodies are still finding out the great icons of our fair land, we continue our quest to find the all-time great cons of Britain. This time, we look at talent contests.

TV standards in this country seem to have dropped dramatically over the past few years. Cynics would argue that they couldn’t drop much further anyway, but nevertheless, despite having 2000 more channels, we still can’t find anything decent to watch.
That’s mainly due to a few things. Firstly, ITV are skint. Secondly, the BBC are skint and Thirdly, Sky is run by an Aussie.

That said, ITV heralded Simon Cowell and Co as the saviours of their network. Cowell and his cronies, which consisted of Dr Fox (who isn’t a Doctor) and some woman whose name escapes me, kicked-off a new talent show called Pop Idol, where your average bloke off the street came in, sang a song and as long as they was good enough, they got the chance of a multi-million recording contract.
After the hilarities of he opening rounds, where every cretin in the country warbled at the panel, so that Cowell could lay into them with his infamous put-downs, we were down to the nitty gritty with people who, to be fair, had a bit of a voice on them.

In the end, the country was gripped as Will Young, from somewhere down South and Gareth Gates from Bradford battled it out in the live final and sang for the votes of the British public. It was a fairly close thing in the end and even the bookies couldn’t split them. Will Young was arguably the better singer, whilst the stammering Gareth easily had the sympathy vote because of his speech impediment. Gareth, who was proclaimed as the best thing to come out of Bradford since the A647, eventually lost although he did manage to get a record deal.

And therein lays the con.

These votes cost upwards of £1 a minute. All the while, the shows costs are covered by millions in sponsorship money. After that, the un-audited winner is announced before heading of to the recording studio.
After that, every runner-up is all of a sudden appearing on ‘Top-of-the Pops’ with their cover version of some 80’s classic.

These TV execs know exactly who’s getting the contracts before a note is sung, yet the idiots keep in voting, and voting, and voting. Yet further proof that the British public is completely stupid.

Come to think of it, after al these contests, only two have actually made anything of their careers. Will Young being one, the other being Lemar, who starred on Fame Academy. The rest, they’ve vanished somewhere, although how they could lose Michelle McManus only Cowell himself will know.

Some of you might be wondering why I’m mentioning this, weeks after the X-Factor just finished.
Well, it comes to my attention that loser ‘Chico’ is looking set for the number 1 spot with his track. Now I would like to point out that I have no idea who or what a Chico is, but it sounds like a child’s train set. Anyway, he seems that in this ‘song’, he repeatedly asks “What time is it?”
Well Chico, it’s time for you to fuck off.

The Road to Nowhere

My usual commute to work isn’t that bad. Mainly because I work on Saturdays and any sensible person is still in bed at 8:00am of a Saturday, but other than that it’s a fairly easy drive with only one speed camera to negotiate.

Until of course, I get to the Inner Ring Road and encounter a huge bright yellow sign informing me that Phase 842 of the A58(M) finishing-off is currently underway, and then it’s traffic cones for as far as the eye can see.
It was one of those big “Sorry for the delay” signs, although judging by the amount of work that was actually going on, a more apt wording should have been; “We don’t give a monkeys about the delay and couldn’t give a rats arse if you are late or not, now stop whinging and drive on.” I trust they enjoyed their tea-break.

Leeds is a weird city when it comes to roads. The main reason being that the whole transport infrastructure of the city depends on this very motorway running straight through the city centre. If the Inner Ring Road is closed for any reason, the whole of Leeds grinds to a halt. Having said that, it doesn’t help that the road has remained unfinished for the past 25 years.
Ring Roads are usually just that, a ring. However this road is, well, straight. It was supposed to be a ring, but then they suddenly stopped building it. Probably because London said it needed something pointless, late and over budget, so Leeds wasn’t allowed any money to finish it and the Cockneys got their expensive useless project. The A58M isn't exactly a road to nowhere, it does go somewhere, but that somewhere just happens to be a different road that then goes somewhere.

The same happened at the end of last year. Leeds was supposed to get a brand spanking new Supertram system, so that we could actually get somewhere without the car, seeing as First Leeds are absolutely clueless when it comes to running buses. OK, the whole scheme went over budget by a fair bit and the bloke in charge of transport, Alistair Darling, wasn’t that keen on spending £355m on a fancy train set.
But then the Londoners were complaining that they needed a new ticket office so they could tootle off the Belgium for the weekend. Of course, as with anything, the Londoners needs suddenly became public priority number one, so us Northerners had to put up with queuing on Kirkstall Road for 3 days just to get to work.

Anyway, looks like I’ll be able to slalom in between the cones for the next few months. Might make the morning commute a bit more interesting

Great Cons of Britain Pt 2 - Extended Warranties

On the British High Street, you’ll more than likely come across a Dixons store. Dixons have been around for donkey’s years after they started out as a camera shop in the 1930’s. Today, they are without doubt Britain’s largest retailer of consumer electronics.
Not only that, but they were also recently voted Britain’s 5^th worst retailer. The main reason for that, amongst other things, is their fascination with extended warranties.

Whenever you buy a product, you are covered for faults for a ‘reasonable’ period of time. What’s is defined as reasonable is open for debate, but typically most places say 12 months. That said, there are European laws that say that you could be covered for much longer than that depending on what you bought.
The retailer has to give you this warranty at no extra charge, and it’s included in the price.

Now some boffin at Dixons HQ decided that he could get people to pay for this ‘freebie’, and so introduced the infamous “extended warranty”.

Basically, the spotty salesman behind the counter says “Here’s you camcorder, that’ll be £300. Would you like our super fantastic 300 year extended warranty with that?” Before you can say ‘no’, he’s already filled the form out and at the same time, earned himself a decent commission as well as added another £35 to your bill.

Dixons, as well as other places, got into a bit of bother over this and now have to do change a whole load of minute details to stay on the right side of the law. That said, they still make an absolute killing on the ignorant and the stupid who don’t realise they are being taken to the cleaners. Effectively, whenever some asks if you want an extended warranty, they are asking “Do you want to pay for something that you normally get for free by right?”

I despair sometimes at the British public, really I do

Great Cons of Britain Pt 1 - Booking Fees

A few weeks ago, a there was a study which set out to find the greatest icons of the UK. The shortlist came up with things like Big Ben, cricket, a cup of tea and that sort of thing. The stuff that really signified Britain.
However, whilst they were looking for icons of the UK, they should really have dropped the ‘I’ in that sentence, because there are plenty of great British cons, as well as icons.
In a short series, we’ll expose those cons, starting with the first one, booking fees.

You know the score, you try and book tickets for a movie at the local cinema. You go online, pick your film, pick your time and pick a reasonably priced £4.50 seat and go to the payment page.
Then, just as you are reaching for the credit card, the £4.50 seat turns into a £6.50 seat. The reason? Someone somewhere has sneakily forgot to mention the £2 booking fee.

Basically, a booking fee is a company’s way of saying. “Thank-you for wanting to buy our product, here a £2 charge for your valued custom.” They are essentially charging you for wanting to buy whatever junk they want to sell. Whoever thought of that idea is an absolute genius. Who says you can’t get money for old rope?

So anyway, you forget it. You don’t want to pay a booking fee, so you go to the cinema and try and get a ticket on the day, except everyone else in Leeds also doesn’t want to pay a booking fee, meaning you’ve got to snake around the labyrinth of the queuing ropes only to get to the window to find no seats left.
When you question this, you get told by the idiot in the booth how you can “book your tickets through our useful website.”

So, here’s the deal. If you want a £4.50 seat in the cinema, you need to pay £6.50. If you don’t want to pay £6.50, wait till Blockbuster gets it.

Why the Panic?

There's been a bit of hysteria lately following a Channel 4 documentary about the budget airline Ryanair.

In all fairness, Ryanair arn't exactly famed for avoiding controversy. Their boss Michael O’Leary is a typical hard-nosed, take no shit sort of business guy. A typical “by low, sell high” kind of bloke. He dislikes the disabled, frowns upon you taking luggage and thinks nothing of dumping you 100 miles from where you actually want to be, but when you’ve only paid 5p for a flight, you can’t really argue.

On Thursday, Channel 4 showed one of those “insider” documentaries, where an undercover journalist hides a camera in their shirt for 2 weeks and pretends to work there, uncovering all sorts of scandal in the process.

But in reality, the programme was crap. The only thing that the whole 1 hour programme really found out was that the Criminal Record Bureau is useless, journalists know nothing about planes and that human beings need sleep. Why they needed to pay someone to work for Ryanair for 5 weeks just to find that out is anyone’s guess.

OK, so you wouldn’t mind a fairly clean plane and you’d like it if things weren’t so rushed, but apart from that what’s to moan about?
Well this hack found plenty. Firstly, she didn’t know how the emergency slide worked on the door, so assumed it must be faulty. Then she was horrified to learn that one of the seats didn’t have a lifejacket.

Now apart from the initial shock of wondering how a passenger managed to walk out with a bright orange lifejacket bulging from under his shirt, why was she so bothered?
For some reason, she seemed to think that planes can land on water…no love, they don’t work like that. Planes don’t land on water, they plunge into the ocean and break into a thousand pieces. It’s just simple physics really.

It’s the sort of scaremongering that the British press is really good at. Us Brits love a good scandal now and again, especially the stupid amongst us.

Nobody should have been shocked by that programme. The sort of corner cutting you saw there was the sort you see in any other business, especially those in competitive markets. As long as the planes have just as many landings as they do take-offs, who cares?

In conclusion, Channel Four wasted an awful lot of money on a completely useless programme. Ah well, better luck next time chaps.

Chip & Pain in the arse

The day is almost upon us. The day when writing your name is no longer good enough. Instead, you need to remember a four-digit number to be able to buy anything in the UK using a credit or debit card.
Chip & PIN, which officially becomes the official way of paying on 14th February, is the latest weapon in the fight against credit card fraud and on the face of it it seems a good idea. Instead of a signature written on the back of the card for all to see, the card is "secured" by a number which you store deep in your memory.
The problem is, whilst it might be a weapon against the criminals, it's a catastrophe for the numerous idiots out there.
At work, we're one of the few 'major' retailers not yet to have Chip & PIN terminals, for various reasons, but the longer they draw it out, the better to be honest.
There are still plenty of people out there who "don't remember there number", despite being told plenty of times to change it to something they can remember. Even my Gran has managed to grasp Chip & PIN, so surely some 45 year old stuck-up, middle-class snob and do the same? Seemingly not if you watched the ITV News today. The report seemed to be very much focused on how Britain's retailers should be pandering to the stupid and ignorant, who refuse to accept that they'll need to remember 4 simple numbers.
One woman even claimed that she couldn't use Chip & PIN because she had arthritis which meant it hurt when she pushed the buttons. How holding a pen and writing her name out is better for arthritis I'll never know.
Oh I can't wait for the day when I get a verbal bollocking because some halfwit can't remember his number and that it's completly my fault, as a till operator, that he is a complete feckwit. Still, it's all part of retail work.
Happy PIN'ing!

Super League is Back!

At last, after a dull winter in which nothing really happened, the engage Super League is back!

Not only will the best Rugby League teams that England has to offer battle it out for a place in the Grand Final at Old Trafford, but the finest that the French can throw at us will also be having a pop.

For my team, Leeds Rhinos, it was back to the normal routine last season. After the unusual scenario of being Champions in 2004, it was back to being the Leeds of old.
We got to the Challenge Cup Final, and came 2^nd. We finished 2^nd in the league and in the Grand Final, we also finished 2^nd. After an anomaly in 2004, normal service had been resumed, although we did win the World Championship.

Whenever possible, we'll follow the Rhinos. Home & Away, whatever the weather. Going to the great and not-so great grounds that the league has to offer. Whilst you football fans might be bragging about how you went to the San Siro in Milan and the Nou Camp in Barcelona in the beautiful sunshine, I'll be standing in the pi**ing rain on a terrace in Leigh, but it's still brilliant.

Today, the first game of the new season was hopefully a sign of things to come, with a reasonable victory over Huddersfield Giants at Headingley (although we’re now supposed to call it ‘Headingley Carnegie Stadium’) I say reasonable, Leeds ran out 20-12 winners against what will probably be a mid-table side. The result was good and some things worked well, although it was the first game of the season with a number of new players making their debuts, so there were understandably a few mistakes thrown in there. A good result with improvements certainly on the way.

Next Friday, it’s onto the JJB Stadium in Wigan to take on the Warriors. The first of many journeys over the M62 for our mini-supporters club, all crammed tightly into a Citroen Saxo. It’ll be a difficult game. Wigan is always a difficult place to go, especially after their defeat against the new boys from France, Les Catalans on Saturday.

The games don’t get any easier either. The week after, we’re off the St Helens to play the favourites. Hopefully they’ll be a repeat of the joyous scenes as Leeds booked their place in last season’s Grand Final with a win at Knowsley Road but regardless of the result, it should be a belting game.

After that, it’s a ‘should-win’ against local rivals Castleford before we jet of to Perpignan as the Rhinos 2006 tour heads to Europe!

Bring on the season!

Pimp My Personality

Across the pond in the good ol' US of A, the MTV programme 'Pimp My Ride' is fairly popular, and why shouldn't it be? It's an interesting programme, what those people can do with a crumbling rust bucket is nothing short of brilliant and, in "X to the Z" Xzibit, it has a decent host.

And that's where the UK version fails. Instead of getting a charismatic, humorous and sensible host to present Pimp My Ride UK, MTV employed the grade A muppet that is Tim Westwood.

Those of you that like your R'n'B and Hip-Hop will know who this burke is, but for those of you who don't, Tim Westwood is the son of a vicar who hosts a Rap / Hip-hop show on BBC Radio One. He got shot in a drive-by incident in 1999 and even used to host some obscure late night music programme on ITV many moons ago, but that got cancelled before anyone knew it existed.
The problem for Westwood is that for some reason, he seems to think that he is black. Don't ask me why he thinks this, he just does.
Be it on TV or Radio, this half-wit is constantly telling us to "take it easy dawg" and "Holla!!" at every given opportunity. You could make a very strong case that Tim Westwood is the sole reason why Britain's youth is talking absolute bollocks.

As for Pimp my Ride, he's cringingly embarrassing. He's not funny, he's not charismatic and he can't talk like a rapper.

When he’s not telling some confused 19-year old how “strong” his “car game” is, he’s declaring how he “tears up the streets big style” in his stupidly big American truck.

Xzibit can get away with it, he can pull it off. A 48 year old, middle class, white man who’s pretending to be “street”, can’t get away with it.

What’s more outrageous is, because the guy works for the BBC, I’m paying to keep this tool in a job with my license fee. (In Britain, you have to pay £100+ per year to watch TV, and that pays for our impartial, advert free BBC)

The other problem is that for some peculiar reason, he seems to be popular with American rap artists. Now, I’ve nothing against rap artists, but if they can stand spending time with this half-wit, then they have probably taken one bullet to the head too many. But that gives him an even bigger ego. He thinks that as long as 50-cent seems to like him, then he must be the greatest DJ ever to grace the planet.

Funnily enough, ‘Fiddy’ (as I believe he is sometimes referred as) hasn’t offered to put him up in the States to keep him away from us Brits.