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  • Argos Returns

    So, back in March I bought a new kettle after mine starting falling to bits (literally the plastic was deteriorating). It was one of these new see-through polycarbonate types. The handle, softly padded, glowed when the kettle was heating. And it was all see-through plastic and chrome.

    Unfortunately, it’s continued to add a chemical taste to the water if it’s left in for any amount of time, the plastic has began to crack and the soft padding on the handle is coming away. All in 5 months.

    As I’m at work and my wife, well, isn’t, she went off to Argos, on her bike, the other side of town, with the kettle and receipt. Except. They wanted to do any kind of refund on the original card used – which was mine. Otherwise my wife could have Argos vouchers, which we didn’t want as the replacement kettle we were looking at was a lot cheaper.

    So I have to visit, as I was the one who bought it. But. I turn up and they still won’t accept my card – I changed banks earlier this year and my bank card is now different to the one used to buy the kettle. So they will only swap the kettle or give me vouchers.

    Begrudgingly I accept the vouchers.

    The kettle we wanted, by this time, was sold out. I found another. That was in the “Extra” range so had to be ordered in (bear in mind I am now without a kettle). In the end I find one – but this is the same price as the one I returned. It means I don’t have the hassle of Argos vouchers to use, but means I’ve spent more on a replacement than I intended. Ho hum. At least this doesn’t have whizzy lights to fail, soft padding to fall off, etc.

    Only time will tell how this goes but Argos… get a grip.

  • Calmness in the face of a BSoD

    Ahhh, the old Blue Screen of Death (or BSoD) – that lovely screen of blue with white text that greets you when Windows goes horribly, horribly wrong.

    Normally, my stress levels hit the roof as a result of one, but I guess I must be getting better at sorting them now, as one such really bad one today hardly made me bat an eyelid.

    I was using a product named DriverMax to look for outdated drivers – it now has functionality to download and install them as well. So I let it. Some people never learn.

    One reboot later and I’ve lost all network capability – any attempt by Windows to re-install it caused a fatal BSoD.

    So I calmly reboot, access Safe Mode via F8 and run a system restore for earlier today. Ta-da – now working. And DriverMax? Not being used.

  • Site update!

    Ok, I may have said I was working on a mysterious new project but at the moment I’m tidying up a couple of sites – this one for a start.

    You’ll therefore hopefully notice a few changes…

    1. I’ve added topic counts and links to topic-related feeds.
    2. The old social bookmarking has been replaced with ShareThis (and thanks to Tony for putting me onto that).

    But – and more importantly, but probably not so noticable – I’ve finally gotten around to making my blog valid (i.e. the XHTML. Or most specifically, the sidebar, which is what had the errors in it).

    Next up, I’ll be working on the Copy+ site – I’ve already had a tidy up of the forum.

  • How to put your foot in it

    I’m not feeling too well right now. Really sore throat and generally grotty (at least it didn’t happen last week whilst I was away).

    Unfortunately I was joking at work today about a meeting I wanted to get out of, and suggesting I might pretend to be ill.

    Bum.

  • Speaking of holiday…

    I was in York last week with my wife and her sister (and my daughter, but she’s not relevant to this particular story). They were shopping at the Cath Kidston store there.

    Now, personally, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than have anything to do with their particular brand of flowery, old-fashioned, chintz, but they (the aforementioned wife and sister-in-law) love it. And my sis-in-law bought a red flowery weekend bag (which my wife already has) for the knock-down, bargain price of £40 (I’d put a picture of it in this blog entry but I can’t find it on the companies site. Plus I’ve just eaten). However, when she got it back to our holiday cottage (which was not exactly nearby) she found a fine but deep but all the way along one side of the bag.

    So, they rang the store… you’re probably now expecting one of my woeful tales of bad customer experience but…. and they’re going to send a replacement out. Free. Without wanting the old one back.

    I guess the kind of people who buy Cath Kidston aren’t people trying a con, so are quite happy to accept the word of the casual customer. And how refreshing it is.

    Well done Cath Kidston in York.