Saturday 28 November 2015

Multi Drop Cowboys - Muzzle Your Goldfish

Bob's Blog



Multi Drop Cowboys? Muzzle Your Goldfish



Due to work pressures, multi drop van and lorry drivers are knocking on doors and not delivering their parcels. They might wait about five seconds for someone to answer the door, but that's about it. It seems counter productive to me, if a parcel requires a signature or is too large to squeeze through a letter box, delivery will have to be attempted on another day, won't it? So why don't they wait a little longer for the less agile to flush the loo /restrain the dog and muzzle the goldfish before answering their door?

I wouldn't want to be a multi drop driver. It must be gruelling work, especially this time of year. Online orders from Mad Black Friday right up to Christmas. But the pressure on them to deliver the maximum parcels possible during a shift, calculated by an inhuman computer programme and monitored by an equally inhuman pubescent sitting on their sedentary bottom in front of a monitor - and also being tracked by every expectant customer, is proving too much. It's resulting in a tap-at-the-door-and-rush-away stratagem. Even when they stop for a leak, big brother - or sister - is probably monitoring their bowel movements.


There are steps that the customer can take however. If you've decided to stop in all day for the delivery because the **!!! **!!! multi-drop company does not, or will not offer a window, you really don't want to miss it, or suffer the indignity of chasing after them in your carpet slippers, zipping up your fly. So . . .


Install an intruder alarm, or now cleverly marketed online as the Multi Drop Delivery Alert. This will indicate when someone is near or on your property. It will probably bleep or something, but a crafty camera will also stream pictures of your imminent delivery to your devices and give you the extra time you need to open the door in time; or, if not your package, serve advance notice of an oncoming party of Jehovah's Witnesses to welcome or ignore: the choice is yours.This equipment can be ordered online of course, delivery date not guaranteed. No tracking. Just stay in all day and cancel one day of your life. 


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Thursday 19 November 2015

Weight Loss Guaranteed - Bathroom Scales

Bob’s Blog

Weight Loss Guaranteed - Bathroom Scales


It's a brilliant idea, lose weight before Christmas and then you can enjoy calories by the stone over the festive season without worry. The answer: I’ve just bought the franchise to a new bathroom scales phenomenon. I’ve been trialling one and it is truly wonderful. I’ve placed an order. They are currently in a container on a slow boat from China. They will make me a millionaire, no doubt about it.

To be technical: these scales are auto-personalised, smart, advanced digital; with step-on technology.

My Review

These perceptive scales will be your friend. They will personalise you in no time. They have extra intelligence that no other scales possess. During the initial setup you will be asked certain questions such as: Do you think you are a fatty? Do you think you are a skinny? It will then know what you really really want to achieve. Thus, it will be programmed just for you.

Want to lose those extra pounds, but are hitting a brick wall – like me? Firstly, tap you toe on the platform and the product will launch. Then, and If, you step both feet on the designated areas, and the digital display calculates that you are a few pounds too heavy; don’t worry, your scales will realise that you might not be happy about it. It will display a warning that will state that it ‘encountered a problem’ and to ‘please try again’. So tap your toe once more. This time it will recalculate to show that you have lost a little weight. Your scales will then ask if you are satisfied? Still not happy? Press the ‘Please try again’ option, tap your toe again and you will have miraculously lost even more weight. It’s called ‘The best of three’ which I’ve registered as a Keeping up with Jones Copyright. It takes the guilt out of attaining your target weight. And as an added bonus, I’ve even found a way of fooling the machine by leaning slightly on a handy wall or radiator. But that would be cheating.

Conversely, those who are attempting to gain weight, and no matter how many meat pies and commercial products they've ingested, how many heavy weights they’ve pumped, how many full-length feature films they’ve couch-watched on Netflix, they don’t. The above mentioned actions will be enacted, but in reverse. If all else fails, a strategically placed sack of spuds will cure all ills. But that also would be cheating.

I highly recommend my MakemyWeight Bathroom Scales: auto-personalised, smart, advanced digital; with step-on technology.

Order one now: Special introductory offer: Five pounds off!




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Wednesday 11 November 2015

My Own UK VIP Passport's Arrived. Thanks Ma'am

Bob's Blog

My very-own Personalised Passport 

I've just received my brand new replacement state-of-the-art redesigned UK passport and noticed something very familiar inside. And it wasn't my unsmiling, squinting, spectacle-less, prison style mugshot.

To make forgeries more difficult, these new passports display several crafty and intricate pictures and logos. They now make a must-have document to own - and they are extremely attractive. 

Inside the cover there is a picture of some very picturesque cottages. I took a double take: I recognised them immediately, not because they are the famous and very beautiful weavers' cottages, Arlington Row, Bibury in Gloucestershire; but because my granddad was born in one of those very cottages in the passport picture, long ago in 1845. However, he forsook the Cotswolds and the drudgery of rural life to seek his fortune not far from London, and worked in the world famous department store: Liberty. Needless to say he didn't make his fortune - it's a family trait. My mother was rather a late addition to his second marriage when he was of advancing years. Well done grandad! And Grandma too!

Now, not many people have a personalised passport I'm sure. I believe that The Queen doesn't need one. But I do, and my complements to Her Majesty for allowing a picture of my granddad's birthplace in my passport. Thank you Ma'am. That's much better than personalised number plates. That's a double identity check that's hard to beat! I'm looking forward to passing through my next passport control. I'll aside: 'My granddad was born in one of those!' flicking it open with some style. 'VIP lounge Sir?' Probably not the response . . . 'Move along there' the more likely. But I bet they've not heard that one before in passport control. I don't reckon many other people can boast that, can they?


I haven't scanned my actual passport picture and blogged it, as that is possibly illegal. I don't want to end up in the tower, and what's much worse, have my gorgeous new personalised passport confiscated.

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Sunday 8 November 2015

Remembrance Day Poem: Tribute to my dad: 'My Old Soldier'

My old soldier

(Originally written for the Bletchley Park Trust World War 11 Poetry reading March 2004)


My dad was an old soldier
Patriotic generations marched before him
And he carried the flag.
His army stories
Met my deaf ear -
I wish I’d listened.

Some comments I do remember:
Churchill: ‘The greatest Briton’, he said
Montgomery: ‘The greatest general’, he said
(He even had a good word for Rommel)
And surprisingly:
Ghandi: ‘The greatest Indian’, he said

He was in the regiment guarding him
And he admired him.
Ghandi waged pacifism
Like the Brits waged war.
Dad served seven years in India,
Dodging promotion as it flashed over his head.

A skinny, sallow shell of a man returned to Blighty
Demobbed for a brief stroll down Civvy Street
Before being recalled for the Big One.
He was one of the lucky lads rescued from Dunkirk.
He didn’t talk much about it.
If he did, I wasn’t listening.

Dad had by then become a stretcher bearer,
So some of Ghandi’s influence possibly rubbed off.
My old soldier’s war record
Marks time in a box in my loft.
It states: that a ‘steady, quiet, conscientious soldier,
Who is honest, and very reliable . . .
Hardworking and does his bit’ returned from India.
It also states after his return from Dunkirk:
That ‘His mobilised service has been very satisfactory . . .
And that he suffered from psychoneurosis’.


(I’m not surprised.)

Copyright Bob Harding-Jones 2016

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Thursday 5 November 2015

Binge-watch



Bob's Blog

Binge-watch



Collins English Dictionary has chosen 'binge-watch' as its 2015 Word of the Year.

That's when viewers catch-up by watching their recorded television series in one go, episode after episode. That's called binge-watching that is.


Are you a binge-watcher?


And, what makes a binge-watcher?

It's watching the first episode of a recorded series that you'd missed because you were on holiday or because you were viewing another programme on another channel. And not to lose the continuity, watching the next recording directly following it. And the next. And the next. It's compulsive. It can be a marathon. It's a busy activity, slouching and couching; but job activity in the house is directly affected - nothing. It's catchup time: the decorating stays undecorated, the washing stays unwashed and the shortlist of DIY jobs gets longer.


With programmes that have six episodes or so, it's manageable. After all, that only amounts to six to twelve hours of your life. One quarter to one half of your day watching TV. What's wrong with that? Problems occur when it's a series that goes on and on, then has a subsequent series, or seasons, then more. Blue Bloods and Friends are prime examples, although, if you watch them in the wrong order, I don't think you'd notice. And they are available on multiple channels, each one showing a different series. Confusing?

Programming these takes a certain amount of intelligence. No doubt there will be a university degree in binge-watch very soon. The Plus 1 TV channels have made things even more challenging. If it's a complicated detective drama, you have the added complication of getting the murders in the right order, not finding out who the dastardly murderer is prematurely, or finding out who did it and with what. And that's before they've wielded as much as an eyebrow.


Binge-watching is a skill. Not to waste time, fast-forwarding the ads is recommended. Lack of timing or concentration results in overrunning and having to rewind. If this occurs, unskilled operators may watch the same segment twice. Experience binge-watchers may brew the coffee with one hand and work the remote with the other hand at the same time. This is called binge-juggling. This is not to be recommended as can result in a visit to ER.

In reality, ER: the actual hospital department, not the virtual programme.


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