For the first time since getting back from Graspop, I’ve been able to dig out a bogie and chomp on it without it crunching. I have finally gotten all the sodding dust out of my nostrils.
Time for a slimey green snack.
Scotland, I salute you
As well as giving is the Beano and Dandy, managing to devolve itself to maintain a national identity and have proper 24/7 shopping, as of March 2006 Scotland is pretty much a public no smoking zone.
Utterly, utterly fantastic. I just wish our weak-willed, money-led, pathetic so-called “government” would do some ******* governing rather than taking baby steps in matters like this.
You know, I love my country. I’m English, even if my family is 1/4 Welsh and 3/4 Scots. I was born on Tyneside and I’m bloody proud of where I was born and raised. Still, between the moves Scotland is making towards a positive, healthy future and the wonderful time I had recently in Europe I’m seriously thinking about the viability of moving.
I probably won’t, but just the fact that I’m even considering it says how much I think this country (England) is going down the shitter. Thanks a ******* bunch, Blair. Thank **** we know you won’t be running next time, at least.
Spam this
Oh dear. I got a spam today. From someone stupid enough to leave their name and phone number on it. Oh dear, oh dear. “Promote Moshville in Sunday Telegraph Magazine Midsummer issues” it proclaims. “Why the **** would I want to do that?” I wonder. The email address they’ve leached is off the front page of this site. Go have a look at it – it’s an obviously out-of-date studenty home page.
Anyway, I called him. I have witnesses if you don’t believe me. He’s called Adam White, he works for WebWindows and he’s on 0207 649 9712. I’m sure he’ll be happy to talkto you, too. All of you. One after another. Day after day.
First I asked what the charges were. Around £495 for a certain column size and a circulation of 1.5 million which, he assured me, is very good value. So… what kind of business was my site related to?
“Well, actually, it’s a 4-year out-of-date personal home page. Is that the sort of thing Telegraph readers are after these days?”
This seemed to surprise him. He giggled. Well, he guffawed a bit. You know the kind of laugh someone gives when they think they’re being wound up.
“Can I ask where you got my email address from?”
“Well, we have a team of researchers upstairs who’s job it is to scan the web for sites based on certain topics and themes…”
“Right, so the Sunday Telegraph readership currently has a high demographic interested in looking at personal pages that haven’t been updated in four years?”
“Well, sometimes sites slip through…”
“Sometimes? Slip through? I own four domain names. Every one of them has received a form email from you, exactly the same with no change other than the domain name. One of these is a blank page with ‘under construction’ on it. I think your researchers need to start reading dictionaries instead of domain lists. Perhaps they’re not sure of the definition of ‘research'”
“Erm… if you give me those domain names, I’m sure we can…”
“No. You’ve already got them. I’m not giving you them again so you can add me to more spam lists. I’m not stupid. I never click on the ‘unsubscribe’ links either because they only prove that the email addresses are valid so people like you can hammer me with more crap, like pills to make my nob bigger. No, what I suggest is you take your entire list and wipe it, then start again with new staff. Or buy a different spam list, which is more likely what you’ve done. Or maybe your so-called researchers are actually a bunch of PCs running robots that just harvest email addresses from web pages?”
“I’ll see what we can…”
“Actually, I’ve got your office address as well. I know. Next time I’m in London, I’ll pop by shall I? Sit in your lobby and drink coffee. After all, it’s only your time and money I’ll be wasting. I’m sure you have plenty of both – you certainly seem to think I do.”
“Yes, well, thank you…”
“Don’t thank me. Just stop spamming people. You’re up there with the other morons trying to convince me they can cure cancer. Goodbye. Tosser.”
*click*
Allen then asked me that, if I was in that mood, could I please call up Dilbert.com and complain that their servers are running too slow. Anyone got their number?
Bloody hell. Not more boogie speak.
I’ve only just eaten.
Damn you!!
I would have loved to have been there, like a fly on the wall Mosh.
Not for the bogey thing though… Think I had my fill, along with your spectators in Belgium ;o)
Babs – sorry. Next time I’ll wait till you’re hungry so I can offer you some of my nice, sticky snotters.
Dawn – I like playing to an audience. I’m surprised nobody in the office has commented yet.
The internals of my nose are sooooo soar. I have been waking up with about a pint and a half of that yellow super sticky snot in my left nostril.
My throat is dry and tickly.
Other than that I feel fine.
During the day the super sticky mutates to dry and crunchy which I have to remove with my thumbnail. It tastes a bit sort of well salty but fruity at the same time.
SFG
SFG, You’ll only make Mosh jealous….
LOL @ “snotters”
There’s nothing like seeing a snottery-nosed bairn playing football in the street, or a bairn wiping his snotters on his sleeve, or sticking a hand into a pocketful of snottery tissues…
Hmmm…snotters….
😀
You know, I waffle on about ringing up a spammer and Scotland becoming no-smoking. And all you lot pick up on is the snot story.
Says a lot about my readership, really.
You really must start recording these phone calls and make ’em available as streaming audio. You’d clean up on web-ads!
Sadly, it’s illegal in this country to record telephone calls without the prior consent of both parties. Which kind of puts the kibosh on that idea.
Silly flipping laws.
I know, laws, who needs em?? lol
Is it really illegal to record phone conversations without consent? Surely all you need to do is say that you may be recording the conversation for training purposes?
In which case it’s with consent. If you ring up a line and a message says that “calls may be recorded for training purposes”, then by continuing you’re giving consent. OK, in other words you have to *state* that you’ll record the call, but obviously if they’re not happy they’ll hang up.
Still a silly law.
Oh, I like the “We may or may nor record this, so there!” warning. It amuses me.
Have you ever to find out whether you’re being recorded or not? They tend to go quiet, go and ask for a supervisor, and not be able to find out. Then you can reply that you might be recording the conversation too, you’re not sure and you’re buggered if you’re going to go to the effort of finding out.
Personally, I like the idea that they’re recording my conversations. I’ll remain reasonable, if assertive, no matter how insane what they’re telling me is.
How, I wonder, would you set somethign up such that there’s a recording saying that you might be recording a conversation at the start of a phonecall? Might being 99% might…