Category Archives: Gripes

Employment, Gripes

Gumtree Job Application

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I’ve been looking for work recently, and I’ve applied for a lot of things.

There’s been a lot of timewasters so far, from scammers on Gumtree, to jobs on more-commonly-legit websites (Reed, Jobsite, etc.) which are not really jobs – but actually paid courses. “No experience necessary”, because they train you at a cost of several thousand pounds to start with.

I can’t remember what I applied for on this occasion, but this is what I’ve just received via email. I have not emailed the address who sent me this email, and they handily haven’t included my original message in the reply. Continue reading Gumtree Job Application →

Employment, Gripes

Are recruitment companies a total waste of time?

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About 10 years ago, I’d quit a permanent job working in a very repetitive role. I went out to a number of recruitment companies, and after registering in person at quite a few – when my hopes had all but gone, I walked up the stairs of a branch of Randstad. They asked me what my Word/Excel skills were like, and I said something like “probably not great”. Continue reading Are recruitment companies a total waste of time? →

Gripes, Travel

Frankie Boyle and Birmingham

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At the end of last year, I went to see Frankie Boyle in Birmingham. I wrote about it, saved it as a draft and never posted it. Why? I didn’t think it was very good (yes, there is some quality control on this blog).

Also, it’s not finished.

However, it seems Frankie Boyle is trending on Twitter today, so I thought I might as well post this. Here you go. Continue reading Frankie Boyle and Birmingham →

Daily Life, Gripes

What a Load of Rubbish in the Daily Mail

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I could use that subject on any given day, but today specifically is the ongoing complaints in the Daily Mail about a “slop bucket in every home”, which they have been banging on about for too long already.

Here’s the istyosty address to read the full story without counting towards DailyMail’s statistics: http://istyosty.com/6jzp but for the moment, I’d like to focus on the end of the story.

Namely, this shower of balls:

Interesting.

I’ll try and ignore the fact that retired teacher Sylvia lives in a terraced house, all to herself (no mention of who the man is, so I will assume him to be one of the other outraged neighbours), so would have no problem housing at least twice as many bins. And the fact that she’s retired at 59 presumably means she has plenty of free time to moan to the newspapers about bin collections.

But is that the full story, really?
Do they HAVE TO put out NINE bins? Really? They’re being “forced” to? Continue reading What a Load of Rubbish in the Daily Mail →

Daily Life, Gripes

Hooters (Bristol) and Teenagers

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I’m going to start right at the beginning by admitting I haven’t been to Hooters. Is this because I find it offensive, or because I think it degrades women? Neither, really.
Their big pull (aside from the ladies) seems to be beer and sports. I don’t like beer (or fizzy drinks at all, really), and I don’t like sports. I’m odd like that. So after I’ve eyed up the waitresses for 5 minutes, then what? I’ll have to eat/drink something.

I’ll probably go at some point because of mild curiosity. There’s a lot of talk online about this place, after all. Must be worth a look? There’s even a petition to have the place closed. Continue reading Hooters (Bristol) and Teenagers →