Petrol Prices

Why do Petrol Prices vary so much, this really annoys me, OK I can see why the Shetlands might be a tad more expensive then the North of England where I live, but let me give you an example.

I use www.petrolprices.com to compare petrol prices... its normally very accurate, in and around my location the price is currently 85.9p per litre, but less than 10 miles away its 82.9p per litre.... why ? it cannot be down to distribution codes, so what is it ?, this price difference is actually pretty big, my normal fill is around 55 litres which is £1.65, it almost cheaper for me to drive 10 miles to this petrol station !

Come on petrol companies, give us the same price, you money grabbing buggers.

Kids Toys

I’ve just spent Christmas morning attempting the impossible, no, not trying to break into Fort Knox, no, that would be easy, instead I have been trying to extract my kids toys out of the boxes they came in.

Why the hell does Upsey Daisy have rope around her neck ?, plastic ties that are impossible to cut with a knife around her legs and arms, which have been tied together by a 10,000 tonne tying machine !

I don’t know why this is, I know it’s pretty recent, is it to stop thieves from nicking the stuff out of the boxes ?, that’s easily fixed, seal the damn boxes, or is it some stupid EU directive ? I would love to know.

What I do know though is that the house is littered with potentially dangerous bits of cable ties, which you simply cannot find once you have used a Stanley knife to cut them, mainly because you lost sight of them when you screamed after accidently cutting your finger trying to cut the bloody things... then 2 hours in hospital waiting for a tetanus.

Royal Mail

Now I know I could be accused of bleating on about Royal Mail, but yet again they amazed me. Today I received a package that was posted 10 days ago, this was a first class item. As it needed a signature I asked the postman why it had taken so long for something in their own words should take between 1-3 days.

He reply was, its Christmas.... which I responded, of course it is, that makes it OK then, after all, it’s not like we have Christmas every year is it, or if you bothered to check the previous 100 years worth of history you might of realised that you will be a bit busier.... so ramp up !

Car Garages

I’ve had a little issue with the car lately and its proving to be a little difficult to fix, OK so some things are not easy to find and fix, but it’s the way they work that really annoys me.

So, the garage takes a look at my problem, it’s going to cost £120 to fix it, for some new parts and labour, I give them the go ahead. I pick my car up, 30 yards after leaving the garage the problem reappears, so I turn around and go back. The garage says, oh it must be something else, and that’s going to cost you another £150, OK I say, so I owe you £30 then I say to them, there was a rather puzzled look on their faces.

Come on I say, you charged me £120 and didn’t fix the issues, therefore put my original parts back on my car, and replace the new parts and I’ll pay you the difference ! well all hell broke loose then.

You see it doesn’t work like that, the garage can have as many goes as they like in not fixing my car and charging me, and it appears that it’s OK as I am footing the bill. I had the same issue with my boiler, they are all bastards and something should be done to outlaw this practice.

0870 Numbers

Let make this simple, these numbers should be banned FULL STOP. Can you imagine buying a sweater at M&S and finding out something is wrong, so you go back to see customer services, when you get there as soon as you enter the queue they start asking for money, that is exactly what these companies are doing. Of course the funny thing is the government is getting in on the act as well, the DVLA made over 3 million pounds on 0870 calls last year !, I wonder by Ofcom are doing very little.

I have a prime example of this rip-off practice, Jet2 lost my seat booking last year, a booking that I paid extra for, I had to ring them (they don’t have email !), I sat in the queue for 20 minutes, then when I got through they said my seat had now been booked by another passenger so I had lost it, after arguing and then trying to get my booking fee back, the total call was 35 minutes. However much I argued they would not give me the cost of the call back, in the end I realised that it was going to cost me more in call charges than the refund so I had to give up, they are scum !

On the other hand though, Virgin, if the fault is down to them they refund the cost of the call, well done Virgin.

Police and Identity

I read that Police may start using fingerprint scanners on the streets, but of course the lobby of privacy campaigners are dead against it, these people are idiots.

I am all for a) Finger printing and b) DNA records being held for everybody in the UK, also any visitors to the UK, as a law abiding citizen why would I not be ?

Why would the police or anybody else be interested in tracking me, or looking into my privacy, it’s a joke, they are far too busy looking for real criminals. Let’s look at some fact’s, a rapist could be caught within hours, a murderer who leaves a finger print, or any crime that the criminal leaves some form of evidence; the police could identify the criminal within hours, why is this not good ?

So come on, let’s do it and find all the arseholes in the world and lock them up (I guess we had better build lots of new prisons first).

Oil Prices

I have always been told that competition is good, the more people offering goods the better, also I believe it is illegal for competing companies to get together and price fix.

So tell me, why does this happen with oil, which idiot decided that the worst most important commodity should have a set sale price for all, be traded by idiots only interested in what model car to buy with their massive bonus and finally allow the production to be governed by people who’s interest is to keep the price high.

Surely we should be creating competition to reduce the price, not allowing idiots to trade oil, it’s too important to the world.