Anthony

Are you Brad Pitt?

Sitting on a bus in Dalston (London. Hackney) on my way home. Sitting next to three very glum blokes wearing red and white.

I did. I reckon they delivered it after I'd gone to bed. Didn't hear a thing.

Best one I had was during the first lockdown, when I was doing the rounds of all the delivery options. Asda were due at 10pm. At 1030pm it was marked as delivered. I thought maybe the driver was outside unloading, but no. Nowhere to be seen. Tried to call to find out what was going on, but the helpline was closed. Multiple calls to their outsourced help centre over the next 36 hours where they insisted it had been delivered. 2 days later I leave the flat for the first time to find it had been left on my doorstep. Groceries. For 2 days. Delivery driver hadn't even knocked. Multiple long calls back and forth to their contact centre resulted in them doubling down to say it had been delivered and they wouldn't talk to me any more. I got in touch via Twitter, which is run from the UK head office. 10 mins later I had a full refund and apology. Absolute wankspanners.

For my part, I use Ocado. They price match brands, so it's not as expensive as perception, but the main reason is it's easy to get refunds, especially for short dated stuff. Go into your receipt on the website, two or three clicks and it's done. Never had them argue the toss once.

It doesn't have those unfortunately. Old style melty fuses.

Take him. Nothing can go wrong.

GF getting a new oven delivered and fitted today; ordered weeks ago, but today was the first day she could fit it in. Turns out they can't fit it, because the fuse box doesn't have an RCD, so they wouldn't be able to sign it off. An RCD makes things safer, so it would be an improvement. So this is a thing that pisses me off that shouldn't. And no, I don't really know what an RCD is. Something fuse something.

Care and healing of chronic wounds. i.e. skincare. Was a rep for a while. Astonishing lack of knowledge in the medical profession about how skin heals. Plenty of knowledge about internal body parts, bugger all about what it's all wrapped in. Nurses get about a day's training on it. Doctors get none whatsoever. General financial advice (not current products) Computer software mechanic stuff ”Why is it borked?" Kind of stuff. And windows installations stuff.

Durr, it's a wing, for extra lift an that. Makes it proper stealthy too.

Should see what it does to the fuel tank.

@3_Penny_Opera Was in town last night, for one night only. I knew he'd be looking dapper, so I had to try to out-dapper him.

They already have it just hasn't been made public yet. Probably.

Absolutely the record companies, yes. But the DRM should tie the track to a person, not an Apple or Sony product. I remember at the time thinking that Apple weren't being clear about the T's & C's tying you to Apple's iPods (at the time) and people were being duped. Anyway, if you want to release the tracks from DRM, so you can play them on anything, you have to pay Apple. I wonder how much of that money goes to the record companies?

Except for his mate in Turkey. Inflation at 67%. Interest rates at 50%.

Yeah, you can use all those apps, but they're hobbled. Apple previously asserted (and won) in court saying that you don't need an App, you can just have a mobile web page, then no need to pay Apple the 30% App Store tax. The fact that apps have access to many more APIs than web pages was missed by the court. And Apple, for some reason. The suit suggests that some functionality is restricted to Apple stuff, for 'security' reasons. e.g. Apple earbuds have lots of groovy ways of interacting with the phone, but non Apple stuff isn't allowed to do quite so much. Same with features that were an innovative 3rd party app. Then Apple add the app's functionality to iOS, but with greater integration and functionality, thereby making the app less attractive and killing it, and, according to the suit, innovation generally, and it's the consumer that misses out. Their 'security reasons' happen to make Apple products more attractive, thereby making Apple more money. 'Security reasons' is Apple's reason for not allowing 3rd party app stores which means Apple can charge 30% on all App Store transactions, or a browser has to use Appe's Webkit, so that the browsers are mostly identical under the surface, meaning that there is no competition to improve a browser on iOS. For 'security reasons' My girlfriend still has a load of songs she bought on iTunes, that can only be played on Apple stuff. And the list goes on. As for Apple Pay, Google Wallet etc, they're all pretty much identical for the end user. I've no idea if Apple Pay is available on Android, but they're free to make it available if they want. The key thing is that no vendor wants it, as it's expensive, in much the same way that many vendors don't take Amex, because it's too expensive. Because on an iPhone you can ONLY have Apple Pay, Apple has a captive market meaning that a if a vendor or bank refuses to take Apple Pay, then they lose out on the entire Apple user base. Some might say that is anti competitive behaviour. Apple make some good products. They engage in anti competitive behaviour. So far, so normal for a megacorp. What sets Apple apart is the lies and abuse of trust. "We're doing this for you."

Always good to see abusers held to account US accuses Apple of monopolising smartphone market From Apple: Damn right it does.

Bloody Irish, coming over here, with their sensible loophole spotting. Bastards.

In the spirit of the photo above, I'd like VT to introduce a word filter to highlight a recurring grammar issue, and maybe make the world a little bit better. Replace "it's" with "it is"

Chatroulette anyone?

FTFY

It also hammers home the message that there is no hope of rebellion. "Are you thinking of fighting back? I know you're unhappy. You know you're unhappy. Look how cowed everyone is."

I echo what @GeorgeVilla82says. Great for travelling too - no need to bugger about moving cash around, just use starling and get the best rates and no commission. Additionally I had my debit card cloned and used. I got in touch with Starling immediately. They cancelled the card and refunded the cash immediately.

Fulham

I grew up in my teens in rural Norfolk. Not even in the village. If you need a 4x4, get a 4x4. Nobody needs these things, which look like they might be good at off road because they're big, but are shit at it.