Minor Rant thread 2018

[Guest]

That time of year when there are even more scams than usual. Phone, e-mail, opportunist burglars and I have recently seen an alert in our area for people pretending to be police and escorting people to banks

[Snoop Puss]

My Mum has been getting several of these calls a day. She knows to hang up. She's tried the Sky shield but couldn't understand how it works. I've looked online at the instructions, but what they say and what she says bear so little relation to each other I've just told her to carry on hanging up. I gave one man an earful about how he should be ashamed of himself. Made me feel better but doesn't stop the calls.

[DannyK]

No amount of call blocking will stop these pests. They have apparatus which spoofs numbers which masks their real number and fools caller display and blockers. I keep getting them despite blocking the numbers.

The one I got yesterday said they were from BT, they promised a new router but pronounced it the American way. What was amusing was that I only had choice of keying 1.

Yesterday's one was left with his ears ringing, I could hear him repeatedly muttering f*** off to himself for a while before he rang off.

I did play stupid, which comes easy, with one once and found they wanted me to give them remote control of my computer, which is very easy to do on Windows. The give way is when their instructions start with pressing the Windows Key. With Macs they have to talk into visiting a web site. Once they've control they can bleed you dry.

From the accents the calls seem to originate from the Indian sub-continent. I'm going to see if Talktalk can block them somehow but the spoofing might beat them.

[Greenleaves]

Ncotrt .....

[Baldy]

The ban on chatting on some threads is only enforced when...

Direct debit taking so long to set up that I've been charged for a missed payment - took 'em over 3 weeks... sigh...

[Lumpy]

GP at 11.50. Hospital at 3pm.
Oh joy opthalmic shingles.
Groan...

[lottie dolly]

MY rant is,THAT,bloomin fairy is at Lumpys,as if she not got enough already,i googled that,and feel for you lass,huggs to you XX

[Lumpy]

The old dog is very poorly indeed. The Charity who we foster for collected the poor thing last night and he was so weak he could'nt walk. He is going to the vets at 2pm and if he survives that won't be with us for at least 5-6 days if at all.

Not going into any more details as I'll end up using words that will get me banned. Either way his previous owners must have been stewards in a bar.

[Lumpy]

Just heard that the old dog has had a blood test, nails clipped, pain meds and anti inflammatories. The person from the Charity who collected him yesterday is going to keep him because he’s lovely and being with todays vet gives the poor old sod some continuity.
Charity now waiting for another one as sadly Christmas to some people mean out with the old and in with the new puppies.
Thank you all for your support even though he won’t be coming to us.
XX

[muck lover]

Here is my minor rant. A couple of months ago I arranged with the nice lady in the local Tesco shop café to collect The used coffee grounds. I provided a box with a lid and swapped it for an empty one two or three times per week. This was working very well. Today when I called and I was told a regional manager had said this had to stop and wasn’t allowed any more. When I looked there was an open topped bin sitting beside the cash register with coffee grinds, paper and plastic milk cartons in it. Clearly not destined for recycling. Probably going to landfill.On the Tesco website there Pages and pages dedicated to their eco-credentials recycling et cetera et cetera.

Other places like Starbucks and Costa boast about recycling their spent coffee grains. I have emailed Tesco’s but sometimes I just despair.

[muck lover]

Just got a reply from Tesco. They are no longer providing coffee grounds to any ‘outside agency’ (???me I assume) because they don’t know the ‘destination or process of the recycling’
That’s me told. I’ve replied to let them know I intend to chuck them on my garden!!!! What a load of tripe.

[muck lover]

I wish Starbucks or Costa sold groceries....

[Snoop Puss]

Wilful ignorance and bigotry.

Oh, and American spellcheckers.

[muck lover]

Just got a reply from Tesco. They are no longer providing coffee grounds to any ‘outside agency’ (???me I assume) because they don’t know the ‘destination or process of the recycling’
That’s me told. I’ve replied to let them know I intend to chuck them on my garden!!!! What a load of tripe.

I’ve had a lively (!)email exchange with Tesco. Actually the chappie seemed really decent and once he had established that I am not a multinational corporation repackaging used coffee grounds for resale we got chatting. I told him about my gardening activities and the conclusion to the conversation was that he will contact my store and ask them to resume the collections. He was really interested actually and is declaring he’s going to take up gardening as he wants a de stressing hobby!!!!!
Enthusiasm is infectious!
Here’s hoping he discovers the satisfaction and enjoyment we get from growing edibles.
Here’s also hoping I will be getting the damned coffee grounds again!

[Snoop Puss]

Not sure if this should go here on the minor rant thread or on the what makes you happy thread, but seeing as I started here, I'll end here.

I've been fuming about goings-on among supposed Facebook friends, who have been sharing supposed facts about a well-known figure. They don't agree with his political views on Catalan independence and have been sharing an online media report that has completely distorted what he said about a totally unrelated but extremely important issue. One person deleted his post on the matter but then went ahead and shared someone else's. No matter how many times I've pointed out the truth of his position on this other issue and have sent them links to the full interview in the original language (which they can understand), they prefer to propagate lies and hatred. This kind of deliberate clinging-on to and compounding of prejudice makes me very worried.

So, I had a good rant to Mr Snoop about this. And he agreed with me and my views about Facebook and social media in general. But he then reminded me how much I enjoy this forum. And he's right. So rant over: time to celebrate the Grapevine. Thank you, everyone.