I feel your pain. If there was an enforced EU regulation that clothes MUST be what's stated on the label Brexit might never have happened.

Five hours.

Five hours wasted on the phone with my ISP tech support and fitting and testing new equipment, only to find out that "something" had switched off my internet access at their end.

Swear to Fraud, every time I buy something recently a site randomly has a sale that stars it a week later. "Our sale runs until the 19th of December"

I've lost a lot of weight but I'm still ordering XXL (I'm 6 foot 3 even if you ignore the flab) because companies will STILL send you a jacket for a chubby kid in 2019, or t-shirts like Billy Connolly used to wear

ION, Amazon sent me doggy dental sticks that are so wrong the dogs can't have them*, plus a company is trying to rip me off on a giant £140 action figure claiming a factory plastic error is acceptable, then Hasbro don't do returns on faults, blah blah blah.

Oh, and Hermes are doing their usual bang up job with hundreds of pounds worth of clothes.

All the consumer choice was great in the early days of the internet, now it's just coalesced around a shower of absolute sh1te.

* Let me know if you ever need Amazon's direct email address, give the fcukers a good rattle is my advice because they're getting worse by the day.

I got a letter through from the council in Recklinghausen, that I had been caught driving 103km/h in an 80km/h zone... Only 3 problems with that.

The car that was caught speeding wasn't mine, so how the f' did they even get my address?
I don't even know the car, have never seen it and most certainly have never driven it!
On the day in question, I was a couple of hundred kilometres away sitting in my office at work!

It looks like it is a car belonging to the company where I work, but the photo of the driver on the fine isn't me, but even so, how did the fine end up being sent to my private address?

I know the New Year's Honours List is largely irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, but really...?

He helped GET BREXIT DONE and that's all that matters. Same with Nicky Morgan's Lord's seat.

I happen to think the only title IDS should be given is incompetent scumbag, or similar, but then what would I know as a resident of a small country that's about to get [LIFTED] over by his machinations?

Ordered a pair of Reebok trainers from Very. They sent me Lullaby LaLa from the Tellytubbies.

Went to deposit cash at the bank and then remembered that branch has closed. So now I have to spend money going into town.

Even putting up a new solar light today meant re-threading the screws on the old one just to remove it... At least the washing is out

Sounds like you should be able to GDPR them (or somebody) into the ground if you feel so inclined.

"Modern" IT solutions in the NHS.

There's a big hoo-haa about single sign on processes. Currently, I have to manually log into four programs to do any work in the mornings. That's actually not too bad. What is worse is the speed at which the software works, and the way it's been all set up.

Ten years ago, we had everything stored on local servers on practice premises, but the software was connected to a central hub. Even if the main link went down, we could still access records, letters etc even if we couldn't receive new blood results, hospital letters or issue medications electronically. Similarly, if the main clinical system went down but the appointments and letters didn't, we could still see who was booked in, call them, handwrite notes and type up later.

Now, everything is located "centrally" akin to cloud software. All of the software can take several minutes to load. Flipping from one tab to the next might be instantaneous or take 1-2 mins (frustrating when you have the patient in front of you and you want to see what medications they're on or what allergies they have). Worse, if the internet connection goes down (BT apparently cut through one line accidentally not too long ago), we lose access to everything. Just as bad is if too many people are logged in on one day. The software is slow and clunky. I should be able to whizz through blood results. On paper, this used to take me minutes. On computer, it runs in to more than an hour for all blood results. Similarly, I used to be able to eyeball printed hospital letters and speed read through them. Now every letter takes about 10 seconds to load on the computer, then another 10 seconds for me to either file it or do something about it (like arrange reception to call the patient).

I know in the corporate world, IT often replace or update computers regularly. We have nothing like this in the NHS. I've got the same computer as I have 7 years ago. It's got Windows 7 whereas it had XP before. Not fit for purpose is how I would describe NHS IT.

Easy bank account switching. Yeah, until they randomly demand documents (I've never been asked for these with an online application before)...


I don't have a driving licence which is how I own my house outright at the age of 37.

I don't have an up to date passport because I've currently no desire to travel.

I don't have an electoral card because state of the c***s.


Even if I could provide one of those all my bills are now paperless (ironically a bank favourite!), and I don't have Sky TV or whatever because I have Netflix. Oh, and even if I did, I'd have to make an appointment with a 'professional' to get the documents 'certified'. What frigging decade are we living in again? Should I doff my cap to said professional on my way out?

I appreciate I'm well in the minority here, but why the fcuk should I be denied account access because I don't have a bunch of stuff that is otherwise useless to me? Plus I'm switching my years old account to them, the security check has already been done!

That's annoying.
It might be worth getting a valid passport for ID even if you don't intend to travel.
It seems to be the most common form of ID required for official things.
Having to get documents certified is just stupid though.
I've only had to do that once, and it was for a job abroad

It would cost more than switching the account will ever make me, unfortunately.

At the end of the day, I shouldn't have to buy something I don't need either.

That's impressive TBH. I'm the same age and still have another 20 years to go on the mortgage, provided we don't move to a larger house.

As for bills and ID, I agree it's completely rubbish. Big corporations can track you through your online activities, and they're looking at facial recognition for targetted advertising but we still have to faff around bits of paper to prove who we are. When I applied for my mortgage, there were masses of hoops to jump through with ID and credit checks. I presume you were a cash buyer so didn't need to do this stuff? Did you use a solicitor to do any conveyancing paperwork for buying the house? Even then, they needed a passport or driving license as proof of ID.

Yup, cash.

I was already a customer so the solicitor had my details from way before. But also the laws are slightly different here I believe.

More and more people don't drive ranging from cost to the environment*. Many in their 30s still live at home and don't have bills to show, and most bills are paperless anyway! In that scenario there's a bloody good chance they aren't going on holiday too.

* Taking the driving test fell by a third in Ulster!