Dealing with Idiots

Bloomin' heck! It's been a while hasn't it? I'm obviously getting lazy at this blogging lark.

Well actually, that's not quite true. I've been too busy dealing with complete muppets, most of whom tend to be working in some sort of "public service" capacity.

The most recent of which are the DVLA.

Given that I haven't been on here for a while, I best explain that my dealings with the DVLA are bourne from the purchase of a new vehicle. Despite the doom and gloom predictions of the "credit crunch", I was still easily able to find a well-known bank stupid enough to lend me a big bag of money in order to purchase said "wheels", a 1.6t Astra Sport Hatch SRI - and very nice it is too:


Now as anyone familiar with the car buying process will be aware, the dealers are more than happy for you to drive around whilst the DVLA, the body responsible for registering ever car and driver in the UK, are completely oblivious to the fact. Instead, they eventually get round to posting the logbook to some industrial park in Swansea where it spends the next three months in somebody's "pending" tray.

Apparently, some disgruntled motorist tried sending a letter bomb to the DVLA although quite how they found out I've no idea. By the time any envelope managed to work its way through their "high speed processing system", any traces of dynamite, TNT or anthrax would have long-since died off. They probably even set the same envelope back to the bomber, given that he probably used the wrong colour pen or something.

Eventually, you get a copy of the logbook, indicating that the DVLA recognise you as the new owner and that any speeding / parking tickets will have your name on them, even, as in my case, your name is misspelled.

OK, so the misspelling may have been the dealers fault and to be quite honest, they are currently on my feckwit list given that they lost the spare key, but that's not the point.

Having sent the logbook back to be corrected, it arrived this morning - again misspelled - with the same misspelling.

Quite why the processing minion at the DVLA thought that sent the document back in the first place I've no idea, they didn't explain but that's probably because they are completely useless.

I thought I escaped all of this shit when I packed in customer service.....

Big Bother

As phone scams go, Big Brother is up there with the best of them.






It's a Channel Four TV programme, completely funded by sponsors, encouraging people to vote for their favourite, or least favourite contestant using a premium rate phone or SMS number. Then, once the voting lines have closed, the unaudited winner is announced. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong with a concept like that? A concept so good, it's also used by shows like X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing.

Well, the problem comes when you try and take the proverbial urine out of your audience.

For those of you that are unaware, the Big Brother voting system encourages the audience, to vote to eliminate the brainless, talentless, fame-hungry contestant they least like from the house, which the audience duly did.
However, in a desperate attempt to boost flagging ratings, the producers pushed their luck too far.
From the contestants already evicted, Big Brother then told the public to vote again to keep out their least favourite, meaning that some would be sent back into the house. They had effectively misled the voters initially on what they were actually "paying for" and were then asking people to "pay again".
That led to more than 2,300 complaints to Ofcom and Ictis and has now landed Channel Four a £50,000 legal bill.

But despite all that, this bit has got me:

On reaching its decision, Icstis did accept that Big Brother was an "editorially inventive show".

How exactly is locking twelve delinquents in a house and then proceeding to mislead equally stupid people into phoning a premium rate number not once, but twice "editorially inventive"? The original concept may have been good and the first series may have gauged interest, but Big Brother is far from inventive. It is a tired concept which is resorting to desperate measures to maintain it's existence. I'd go as far to say that the only reason we are still subjected to this programme every summer is because it is profitable for Channel Four.

Channel Four is a good channel, with excellent programming. It's just a shame that Big Brother lets down it's portfolio.

How to Ensure a Mass Gathering of Idiots

Late night TV in Britain has always left something to be desired, but late night TV on Sattelite has always left even more to be desired.





Bring up any programme guide and you'll be bombarded with offers of Barely Legal Teens, the 23rd repeat of the day of The Vicar of Dibley or a one of those stupid Quizcall things.
But then of course, there's the football phone-in, 'You're on Sky Sports'.
Sports phone-ins have never really attracted Britain's intelligentsia, but put one on in the middle of the night and you have a recipe for disaster.
I can never really understand the attraction as a viewer, of watching a group of drunken, half-brained fools argue and shout with a couple of ex-pro football players and I certainly don't understand the attraction in paying £1 per minute to argue and shout at said ex-pro footballers.

Sky have hardly tried to take the programme 'upmarket' either and if they have, they're going the wrong way about it by keeping Steve Claridge on there, probably the most self-important person ever to grace a television screen since serial arsehole Rodney Marsh got sacked for making an sick joke about the Tsunami that was completely unfunny to anyone who's brain-cell count consisted of more than a one digit number, which speaks volumes that he found it funny at the time.
A whole hour of moronic moaning at referee's, proclaiming how England are going to win the World Cup and play-ground arguments about how one over-paid prima-donna is better than another over-paid prima-donna.

Perhaps it's all a Government conspiracy to cut down on worker fatigue and get us all to bed earlier, or perhaps it's another money making ploy from Sky, by putting absolute rubbish on it's main channels and getting us to pay £42 to phone up those dolly birds on Quizcall.