WAMT....what annoyed me today!

Passing one of the last few large outdoors shops in the area to see closing down 30% off everything plastered all over it.

As I’m in need of a few bits popped in.

WAMT is twofold,

that it will leave only one Go Outdoors as the only outdoors shop in most of the county

And that 30% off everything is the just thier normal selling price. They have changed all their prices back up to RRP and taken 30% off that so nothing was actually cheaper. In fact thier rival Go Outdoors has 15% off sale so cheaper anyway
 
In the midst of rationalising my kit - moving on those I know I won't be using at all over the next few months or to make way for something newer and better (eg 24-70 Nikkor VR)...

Most of my newer lenses are 77mm filter thread, well those that use the Lee Filters system with the 77mm WA filter adapter. Also have a collection of circular 77m filter (Circular PL and 10xND by B&W)... I get the Pentax 24-70D-FA* which is 82mm. No problem so I got the 82mm adapter. As my polariser is a 77mm screw-in I thought either get the Lee Filters one or an 82mm screw-in version.

In my usual shop I enquired about a screw-in filter but they didn't have many options so I looked at the Lee Filters, yes they will fit the LF Foundation holder... I trusted them and when I took out the kit to photograph Il Redentore in Venice Filter holder and polariser were incompatible.

So 6 weeks ago I was already annoyed. Annoyance was brewing.

I have since bought a new filter holder during Black friday sales and just sold my old one on here. Annoyance abated,

Today, while I was looking for other stuff (failed so far) I came across a box of screw-in filters. And an unopended Hoya Pro 1 82mm Circular Polariser! Annoyance DEFCON 1.:headbang:
 
Sorry to laugh but that's what happens more often than not when I can't find something I KNOW I have somewhere - as soon as I buy a replacement, the original appears as if by magic!
 
Nod said:
Sorry to laugh but that's what happens more often than not when I can't find something I KNOW I have somewhere - as soon as I buy a replacement, the original appears as if by magic!
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we decided it was not the end of the world...at least the screw-in filter will be used from time to time.
 
I don't know if this is magic or pixies but is there a way to cheat the system?

Maybe I'll turn the house upside down looking for my A7IV (I don't have one...) and when I can't find it I'll rant and rave and reluctantly order one. The day it turns up I'll find my one (I never had) has been in the bottom of a cupboard all this time, placed there by magic/pixies, and I can send the newly received unopened one back.

If this works I profit one A7IV.

It could work :D
 
Knowing my luck I would find the empty box :oops: :$
 
Getting a PCN Final Notice when I never even had the 'first' discounted one !

This was at a Toby Carvery in outer London for a family get together in mid November. It seems that it is one of those locations where you have to get your reg number logged in.

Well, in the dark there were no clearly obvious & illuminated signage and nothing obvious in the reception & the staff do not enquire or ask if you came by car..... :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :thinking:

At this stage I have made an enquiry complaint to the Toby Carvery in the hope that they will confirm we were there , doing so in writing, so that I can make an appeal to Euro Car Parks with the asked for "any substantiating documents".

A real PITA not helped by my brother, when I asked if he too had such a PCN, who said ooops! 'we go more often and do get the number logged!!!!
 
My ISP went down - Broadband and TV :(

Was out for 6 hours and of course not being able to get on the Internet I'd no way of finding out what was going on
 
Use your phone?
 
bit difficult when the ISP was down - couldn't get anything on my Phone

It wasn't just me - seems there were hundreds in the same boat
 
camerassassin said:
bit difficult when the ISP was down - couldn't get anything on my Phone
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So could've been a power outage that affected the masts? Just the ISP being down wouldn't stop you accessing the internet on your phone.
 
Probably should have turned wifi off on the phone, as it will use it by default as it can see the local signal from your router and ignores the internet being unavailable beyond it.
 
I did turn WiFi off and tried with mobile Data . 4G signal was definitely 'flaky' . I did manage at one point to get a couple of Text Messages out to friends and they told me that my ISP was down completely.

I had tried several time to reboot my Router/ SuperHub and the green light was actually red after rebooting . When I shut things down I left it for about 20 mins before trying again.
 
HMRC.

Just that.
 
Same crap - different boss...
 
Got a Christmas card through the post today - has one of the fancy new stamps on it, so no postmark [ ie no indication of where it was posted] Snag is that I didn't recognise the handwriting !!

Was just signed "US" Hmmmmmmmmmm. I think I've worked it out by checking on my 'sent' list
 
camerassassin said:
Got a Christmas card through the post today - has one of the fancy new stamps on it, so no postmark [ ie no indication of where it was posted] Snag is that I didn't recognise the handwriting !!

Was just signed "US" Hmmmmmmmmmm. I think I've worked it out by checking on my 'sent' list
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That happened to me recently, I got a letter which is obviously from a family member but it's not signed and there's no postmark.

Anyway... My local post office/shop.

We subscribe to a newspaper and pay by direct debit, they send us barcoded tokens which we take to the paper shop and hand over and we only pay the paper shop in cash for delivery which is under £3 a week, actually it's something like £2.85 but I forget exactly how much. The problem is that the staff there can't add up and don't know what they're doing so we're constantly and repeatedly overcharged. I never lose my temper, I never shout, I always try to reason with them.

So, I took 21 tokens, that's three weeks worth to the shop but as we only pay delivery the bill should be about £9 and actually slightly under. The bill came to over £40. "That can't be right" I say "We only pay for delivery." So she fiddled and got the bill down to £30 odd. I refused to pay until the manager checked the account. Today I tried again and the manager announced that the bill was £9 odd. I thought it should be under £9 but I thought I wouldn't argue and I agreed to pay but when I looked at my receipt and change she'd charged me over £10. Oh well.

It's their last day, they're all being made redundant and the shop is closing. I wished them well but for me that shop couldn't close a moment too soon. Part of my annoyance is that they're so surly with me as if they resent me pointing out that they're overcharging me and I'm sure they do but it's not my fault they don't know what they're doing. These tokens seem to be a pretty common thing and other people must have been being overcharged and handing over their money.
 
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I bought something from my local store. At the till I added a newspaper. The poor girl couldn’t add the two together so she took my five pound note and gave me change for the first item. Then took a two pound coin from the change and gave me change from that for the newspaper?
 
Norkie said:
I bought something from my local store. At the till I added a newspaper. The poor girl couldn’t add the two together so she took my five pound note and gave me change for the first item. Then took a two pound coin from the change and gave me change from that for the newspaper?
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A few weeks ago I had the same hassle and the middle aged woman (they're all middle aged women, no men or youngsters) tried to add three items together using pen and paper and she couldn't do it. When I saw that the constant overcharging made sense. None of them are IMO suitable to work in a shop. I know point of sale terminals do a lot these days but maybe some mental ability should be a requirement to work in a shop handling cash, or even cards or tokens.
 
We had a young lad working for me as work experience from school. We found out by accident that he couldn’t read a clock. He could tell the time, by using his digital watch.
 
Norkie said:
We had a young lad working for me as work experience from school. We found out by accident that he couldn’t read a clock. He could tell the time, by using his digital watch.
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Amazing.
 
Norkie said:
We had a young lad working for me as work experience from school. We found out by accident that he couldn’t read a clock. He could tell the time, by using his digital watch.
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Googling I found ref to a US survey in 2016 that 75% of kids could not read an analogue clock.

It seems it is more common than one might imagine and one link came up saying that dyslexia can be a factor in the inability to read analogue clocks!
 
I remember years ago my sisters children were struggling a bit at maths at school so sis decided to give them some sums at home (I was surprised she hadn't done this already but what do I know...) The kids took one look at the sums on the piece of paper and said "Where's the boxes?" and refused to even try. Apparently if boxes weren't drawn around the values the sums just couldn't be done.
 
My youngest brother was allowed to use a calculator in his mathematics exam…
 
I think the thinking these days is that maths and getting things right in general is white oppression and colonialism.
 
woof woof said:
I think the thinking these days is that maths and getting things right in general is white oppression and colonialism.
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So the excellent education system in places like India, South Korea, Japan and various other non WASP nations are all because of white oppression & colonialism :thinking: Whether that is the case or not, 'they' are in lots of cases putting our UK education to shame!
 
Box Brownie said:
So the excellent education system in places like India, South Korea, Japan and various other non WASP nations are all because of white oppression & colonialism :thinking: Whether that is the case or not, 'they' are in lots of cases putting our UK education to shame!
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It seems that in some circles politics and feelings and flags and in extreme cases pronouns and self declared genders are more important than getting the sums / science / language right.

I've recently been reading some of the outpourings of the more extreme woke activists and it's hard to think they're either doing the best thing for students or are on the right side of history. I think I'll stop reading this stuff as every time I read some of it I worry for the future.
 
It's not that new it's over 40 years since I left school and the one subject I was very good at was maths never wrote any working down as I did it all in my head and just wrote the answer.
I was continually pulled up for it as if I had gotten the answer wrong I wouldn't have got any marks as I hadn't shown my working, where as you could get the answer totally wrong but still accumulate enough points to pass if your method was correct.
 
tarric said:
I was very good at was maths never wrote any working down as I did it all in my head and just wrote the answer.
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Pretty much the same here, TBH.
Although I have to admit, I can't do half the stuff these days , only the basic stuff.
 
I didn't go to a particularly good school and I only got a CSE in maths. I did better after leaving. At college one subject was electrical science and that contained a lot of maths and I always did well at it. I think I got a distinction every year I did that. At the time I finished the tutor wanted me to carry on and go into teaching but that just wasn't on my radar and I ended up fixing computers and peripherals.

I suppose every generation thinks standards are falling.
 
I had an IT graduate trainee working for me during the summer some years ago. I asked him to produce a graph plotting a percentage against a timeline, he was unable to work out the percentage....
 
broc said:
I had an IT graduate trainee working for me during the summer some years ago. I asked him to produce a graph plotting a percentage against a timeline, he was unable to work out the percentage....
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He probably go far. As a Lived Experience professional.
 
Got a note through the door about sainsbury's giving away loads of veg from one of my neighbours, her daughter is something to do with a green living thing and was going to collect some to put out for residents, dunno why but she put something about not be charity just stopping food waste
Came home just afte6pm last night and got stopped and told about it again by another lady who said I should have a look. carrots, sprout and parsnips packaged ready for the shelves were piled on a bench, potaoes coming tomorrow
To get away I picked up a bag of parsnips. When I got home I thought they felt odd through the plastic, maybe the rain had got in so opened the bag
They were actually slimey and smelt odd, no idea what the sell by date was, nothing on the package, but then I' don't strictly adhere to anyway
Phoned the lady who put the message round and was told there was no problem, once they were washed a peeled they would ok, I don't think so. Her reply was that people could decide for themselves !,
Bearing in mind that I live on an over 55 estate and many are in late 80s/90s and vulnerable, I spent most of lockdown running errands for them, this attitude of it being better to give away rotten veg then dumping it seems wrong to me
 
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