Things that you notice in a major city centre

On Saturday afternoon, I had the misfortune to venture into Leeds city centre, not realising that said day also happened to be the major shopping day before Christmas.



But still, major shopping days happen to provide a source of mild amusement when you actually take a minute to look around. Here are a few that I spotted.

• People naturally join a queue, despite not knowing what the queue is for.
  
  
• Police truancy patrols are a very good idea, but I would question their effectiveness on a Saturday afternoon.
  
  
• Every single motorist wants to park in 'The Light' car park.
  
  
• In the German Christmas market, most shoppers will adopt one of two strategies.
  1. Talking to the stall owner in your best GCSE German.
  2. Talking in the "S-L-O-W-E-R AND L-O-U-D-E-R" method that Brits do so well when abroad.
  They do this despite the fact that the stall keeper is a Chinese boy with a distinctly unnerving Yorkshire accent.
  
  
• People don't seem to understand that shops at Christmas are often busy places and continue to proclaim that "this is stupid this is" at single one of the 32 Christmas temps drafted in just for that particular weekend.

I'm sure I'll think of more later

Now you know that the IOC have lost it

Whilst all around you are losing their heads, you should lose yours as well so as not to look stupid. That's presumably the motto at the IOC.





Now in some respects, I can accept that the chairman of the IOC's coordination committee Daniel Oswald quite likes the newly unveiled London 2012 logo, after all, that would be a matter of taste. He thinks that it's modern, dynamic, youthful, all the usual meaningless phrases that marketing people tend to come out with when trying to justify an excessively large invoice.
I on the other hand, as well as most of the British public, think that the 2012 logo shit but each to their own.

The worrying thing comes a little later though:

"We were delighted to have confirmation that the legacy aspect of the Games was what it was promised at the time of the bid," he said.

"This legacy is very important and we really consider London will be a model for future host cities of the Games.

What? Are you serious?

A games that is already predicting an increased budget of £9.3bn, has an aquatics centre that saw it's budget double overnight and a games policed by a force that doesn't have enough qualified officers, all of which before a brick has been laid is a 'good model' for future games?

It all comes from the IOC visit to London to check up on how the preparation is going. Given that the IOC, as an organisation, is a law unto itself, my only expectation is that this turned into a lunchtime back-patting session, just dragged out over three days.

Nevertheless, Ken Livingstone can't help but take this opportunity to have a dig at the doubters following these baffling comments:

Mr Livingstone guaranteed the 2012 Olympics would be the "most successful since Barcelona in 1992 in terms of regeneration and legacy".

"As the next three Olympic Games follow London, we will still be getting the legacy benefits in terms of housing and employment," he said.

He added that London would be able to meet all its Olympics targets and would "stage the greatest Games ever".

"It is time for the pessimists and purveyors of doom to start looking at the facts as laid out today and join the rest of us in backing London," he said.

As for the 'most successful legacy since Barcelona', he's probably right. Just as Barcelona turfed more than 50,000 gypsies from Montjuic Hill back in 1992, London will leave a legacy of local residential areas being bulldozed to make way for luxury apartments, leaving behind increased house prices and the dismantling of a community to be replaced by a wealthy clique.

But we should start looking at the facts? I am looking at the facts Mr Livingstone. The facts are that in 2002, the DCMS published the 'Game Plan' report which claimed that "hosting events is not an effective, value-for-money method of achieving ... a sustained increase in mass [sports] participation".
Another public think-tank found that "there is no guaranteed beneficial legacy from hosting an Olympic games ... and there is little evidence that past games have delivered benefits to those people and places most in need".
The facts also state that this Olympics is already over-budget by a considerable degree and that the London 2012 committee has produced an unpopular, epilepsy-inducing branding campaign.

Still, best to stick your head in the sand, assuming you haven't lost it yet.

Are enviromentalists really that mental?

I'm not the world's biggest supporter of environmentalists. I'd rather we did save the whale and stop cutting down the Amazon, but I also like my car and enjoy outdoor lighting. It's fair to say I'm more from Jeremy Clarkson's school of eco-issues than Al Gore's.




There are some great minds that are thinking up great ideas for us to 'go green' and help us save whatever obscure Pacific creature is in the news that week. The hybrid car, LPG, ethanol batteries, wind-up radios and so on.

It's those people we should probably be listening to.

Unfortunately, most people listen to half-wit politicians and celebrities looking to jump on the latest bandwagon than passes by.

Sheryl Crowe seems to think that the key to saving the environment is to cut back on the bog roll.
Like all used pieces of Andrex, I think we all know where this idea should be consigned to.

If you are going to argue a point, at least know what you are talking about.

Stupid people can be funny sometimes, but it's even funnier when stupid people think they are clever.






This evening I had the pleasure of enduring one such idiot, who seemed to think that he could lecture me on the European Convention of Human Rights.

Having studied the said convention as part of my Media Law & Regulation assignments, so I like to think I know the basics at least. Anyway, those of you from far-off lands and America will have no idea of what human rights are, so let me explain.

It's basically eighteen 'articles' which include:

• The right to life.
  
• Freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment.
• Freedom from forced labour or slavery.
• The right to Liberty and to a Fair trial.
• Freedom from facing retrospective crimes or penalties.
• A Right to Privacy.
• Freedom of conscience.
• Freedom of expression.
• Freedom of assembly.
• The right to marriage and family.
• Freedom from discrimination.

Now this particular baffoon was intent on convincing me that by refusing to allow him to use our private toilet facilities, I was "infringing his human rights".
Initially I couldn't be bothered arguing with him. I'm a firm believer in the phrase "Never argue with an idiot, he'll only drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience." At that point I was prepared to ignore him and dismiss him as one of these stuck-up pillocks who feels he has a right to talk to retail staff through his nose, but he kept pushing me for an answer, so I gave him it:

"Well no to be honest sir, I don't agree with you. I cannot see how me refusing to allow you to use our private toilet facilites on the grounds that it presents a security risk infringes one of the eighteen articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, unless perhaps if you could convince a judge that urination as an act of expression."

At that he seemed quite taken aback that what he must have seen in his eyes as a "shop-serving minimum wage monkey" knew so much more than him about one of the most complex and controversial legal statutes in history.
Anyway he retired, tail firmly between his legs.

Only not quite, he then returned a few minutes later to shout across the store, "I've just gone against your wall, how do you like that?!"

Nice to see that I am still part of a civilised society. Perhaps he'd be quite dissapointed to know that every evening he's out-done by the tramp who shits in our skip.

It's All My Fault

Apparently.
A few months back I wrote about how the customer is rarely right and even longer ago, I wrote about how rubbish Chip & Pin was.




It's amazing how two things collide sometimes.

Today we arrive at work, 10:00am start for a 11:00am opening. At 10:20 the phone rings. Some dopey cow had left her card in the chip & pin reader yesterday and I was to be treated to the rendition of how it is everybody's fault except hers.

"I left my card in you machine yesterday, it's an absolute disgrace....this has ruined my weekend.....why don't you tell people to take their card out?.....I want some compensation.....I'm not buying things from somewhere with this attitude towards customer service......I'm not the one who's stupid.......blah blah rant rant"

I've said it before, but people's brains stop functioning when they are in a shop. They become mesmerised by the array of shiny things and they lose all train of thought.

So when a shop assistant says to them "Please put your card in the reader and follow the onscreen instructions." and then later says "please remove your card" at the same time an onscreen message says "REMOVE CARD" in block capitals with an audible alarm, what would any sane, normal, intelligent person do?

That's right, you'd leave your card in the reader and then phone up the next day to complain that it's the shop assistant's fault that your weekend was ruined.

Thankfully I leave Uni in June. Then it's the end for me in the world of retail and off on another adventure to encounter a different breed of ignoramus.