Retail Headaches

"SALE NOW ON!" scream the shop windows at us. January Sale, Spring Madness Sale, Summer Sale, Clearance Sale, Blue Cross Sale, Red Circle Sale and Pink Flamingo Sale for all I know. The truth is that we seem to have sales on all year round now, so we largely ignore them. When do you ever see posters proclaiming, "This Week Only! Everything at Full Recommended Retail Price!" Of course we never would, even if they were bonkers enough to want to advertise such a fact. It always makes me wonder...if they can afford to sell something at half price in a sale, how much mark-up would they make on it normally? But the trouble is we all need, or want 'stuff'. Whether it's a replacement camera, an iPod, or the latest Wii game, we all do it. We love the retail 'fix' and the momentary high it brings us. I have personally spent thousands of pounds on techie stuff. I love new technology, and I always want it now! I can remember paying over £400 for my first DVD player, and you can now get one for 19 quid in tesco! With mass marketing and manufacture, the price of everything falls eventually. It's just a case of whether or not you want to wait for it.

Then of course the problem with mass manufacture is there is always going to be a percentage of machines that are assembled badly, or have parts missing. They are knocked out as quickly and cheaply as possible.
It seems to be a fact of life these days that whenever you buy something new, you are almost surprised if everything is intact, complete, and works straight out of the box. Retailers are constantly in a price war with their competitors to provide the goods or services just that little bit cheaper, in order to gain you as a customer. People these days are a bit more savvy, and I think most folk 'shop around' when deciding on a major purchase for the home or car. The retailers then have to provide goods cheaply, and to do that, sometimes corners are cut. The electronics companies that once worked in this country have now mostly 'gone to the wall', unable to compete with imported goods from China, Poland or Korea. The industry has become so cut-throat that retailers will try every ruse they can to get you to part with your money.
Their favourite scam is the Extended Warranty. All the staff are primed to hit you with their spiel the moment you decide to buy. If you choose to add the warranty to your purchase, you are probably increasing the price instantly by as much as a third. I recently bought a lava lamp, ( I know...how '70's!), but that aside, the thing had been reduced from £19.99 to £9.99. I was asked at the till if I would like a 3 year extended warranty on it at a cost of only £3.99. Whilst the cost is not necessarily an issue in this case, the principle is. A lava lamp is simply a bulb with a glass cylinder of wax above it. What can go wrong? If the bulb pops, you replace it. If you accidentally smash the glass cylinder, it's not covered by the warranty anyway!

In the case of more expensive electrical goods, they are covered by a Manufacturers Warranty for 12 months. If there is an inherent fault with a machine, you'd hope that it would show up long before the year was up. Even if it doesn't, and even if you do want the piece of mind of insuring something against breakdown, try talking to your home insurer first. You'll be amazed at the savings you could make, and you'll most probably end up with a new machine.

That aside, we also have to deal with surly staff. Yes, we know retail work is badly paid, but manners cost nothing. So many of the lads and lasses that work in shops these days treat customers as though they are a pain in the arse, and that you are lucky that they allow you to even walk through the door, let alone serve you. Courtesy or politeness is almost painful for them, and you leave the shop feeling that they have somehow done you a favour by even acknowledging your existence. Well, to be fair, there are two types of retail workers. There are the ones stated above, who are pissed off that they have to spend their lives in this godforsaken place, and then there are the ones that are so obviously working on a commission. They leap at you the moment you enter the store, cheesy grins in abundance, and questions about what you are looking for. If you fall for their patter, you are shepherded to whatever department they want you to visit, and the blurb starts. "This tv/dvd player/washing machine etc is the best on the market. And if you buy it this week we also throw in free cables/dvds/towels. But you have to hurry, because today is the last day of the promotion. Shall I just check if we have some in stock, and then we can do the paperwork" Before you know it, you are the proud owner of the latest Craposonic or Singsangdung machine, and are walking back to your car, with a wallet full of warranty.

I can't really add more to this rant, except to include an excerpt from the Which? magazine's website, which advises people the best way to go when shopping for goods. Maybe you could add your own experiences via comments to this blog, and I will add them to it. Here's what Which? says:

"UK customers are frustrated with the consistently poor service provided by organisations in the UK according to a study by RightNow Technologies, with respondents indicating that one quarter of their customer service experiences in the last year have been negative.
The study, entitled "The Customer Experience Report, Great Britain 2006", reveals that 65 per cent of all respondents moved their business elsewhere after a bad service experience, while more than one quarter - 27 per cent - of Britons also indicate that once their custom is lost, it is lost forever.

When staff were confronted with the faulty DVD player, most instinctively pointed to the manufacturer's warranty. Electrical goods usually come with a one-year manufacturer's warranty, which the manufacturer is legally bound to honour.
But that simply lets you choose another route to getting your product repaired or replaced. During the warranty, the retailer still has the same responsibilities. And, when it expires, the shop's legal obligations remain - not that this stopped staff hiding behind the warranty like a safety blanket.
We were bemused by the service we encountered, so we contacted all the companies and asked what steps they took to train staff. The head offices were very helpful and all duly told us that they kept their staff fully informed about shoppers' rights. Curiously, that training isn't showing up on the shop floor.
One obvious way to help confused staff would be to include information on rights in the in-store bumf. At the end of each visit, we asked whether the shop had any leaflets which outlined our shoppers' rights. Some of the staff were so perplexed by the notion that they offered us leaflets about extended warranties or price promises instead.
All the leaflets were at pains to state that the offers they contained wouldn't affect our statutory rights - but that would have been more reassuring if there had been someone in the shop who knew what those statutory rights were.

Contact the head office
Even at some of the stores which were helpful, we were pointed towards the head offices. So save yourself some grey hairs by contacting the head office first. Be firm, explain that you think your product hasn't lasted a reasonable amount of time, and say that you'd like it investigated and repaired or replaced if it turns out to be faulty.
We'd always suggest taking goods back to the shop first, but if you are fobbed off then go to the head office. M&S, John Lewis etc are usually fairly good at providing refunds when goods are faulty.
The evidence
If the goods are less than six months old, it's up to the retailer to prove that the fault wasn't present at the time of purchase. For anything older, it's entitled to ask you to provide evidence of the fault.
If the views of, say, a local repairer won't sway them, you may need to get an independent expert to product a report. You should always try and agree with the retailer on an expert you are both happy with and the questions that will be put to them, before you instruct them.
Make sure you know how much they will charge, as if you win, you are only able to claim back a maximum of £200 towards expert fees in the small claims court.
The repair
Once you know that the problem is caused by a manufacturing fault, ask the retailer to repair or replace your appliance. If the cost of doing this is disproportionate, the retailer can offer a refund instead - though this might not be a full refund, depending on how much you've used the product. If you don't want to wait for the retailer to assess your claim, you can pay someone else to fix the item. As long as it provides evidence of a manufacturing fault, you'll be able to claim the cost of repair from the retailer.
If all else fails
If you have a claim that the retailer won't settle, you can take it to the small claims court. The judge can order the retailer to settle the claim and pay legal costs.
Hopefully, things will never get that far. But, until the shops sort their act out, you might have to force them to respect your statutory rights - because you'll probably know more about the subject than they do."

Automated Helplines, and Call Centres

The Automated Helpline. Which really means "Automatically Helps Whatever Business or Service it is Supposed to Cover, Whilst Systematically Pissing Off Any Customer Who Dares to Ring".

We've all had the unfortunate experience of having to use these dreaded things. You ring the helpline number, and the phone is answered after only three rings. Great! Then you realise that you are connected to the recorded message, and your heart sinks.
“Good afternoon, and thank you for calling Joe Soap Ltd. In order to assist our call centre staff deal with your query quickly, please enter your sixteen digit account number on your keypad and press star”
Tappety tappety tap tap tap, and then you hear,
"We are sorry. That number has not been recognised. Please try again”
Tappety tap tap tap tappety tap.
“Thank you. If you are calling about a sales query, please press 1. If you are calling about a billing or account query, please press 2. If you are calling about a technical fault or breakdown, please press 3. For all other queries, please press 4. To hear this list of options again, please press 5”.
You press the relevant number, only to hear,
“Thank you. All our call centre representatives are busy right now, but we will get to you shortly. Please hold the line”.
You settle in for the long haul, and after a couple of minutes you hear,
“We are sorry to keep you waiting. A call centre representative will be with you shortly. Please hold the line. Your call is important to us”
You have been on the phone for 10 minutes and haven’t actually spoken to anyone yet!


If you do manage to get through to a real person at the end of all the Press 1, Press 2, Press 3 nonsense, you often find them uncaring, unfriendly, or just impossible to understand. I know that call centre staff have a pretty much thankless job, and are not especially well-paid considering all they get to do all day is listen to people moan and complain. However, they chose to do that job, so they have to accept that unfortunately the are in the ‘front line’. They are the only human contact we plebby customers have with the fat-cat companies, so they have to expect a certain amount of flak.
What we don’t want to hear is somebody who, fair enough, may be having a bad day anyway, but they then let their bad mood come across in their conversation with you.
You can be in the middle of a conversation with a call centre, and suddenly the line goes dead. It may be a technical fault, but cynically, I can’t help but think that they just get fed up with you, and pull the plug.
If they do remain on the phone, they often say that they will deal with your problem, but they will have to speak to somebody else about it first, and could they call you back. How annoying to be left waiting and then receive no come-back call. So then you have to ring them back, and you are bound to get someone different on the phone, and so have to repeat everything all over again.
Sometimes you ring up and it sounds like they’re having a party at the other end. You are connected, but no-one answers you for a while, and all you can hear is chatting and laughter in the background as they discuss what they got up to in the pub last night with their mates.



2006 seems to have been the year of companies outsourcing their call centre work to India to save money. Then a whole new raft of problems exists. They may not be as discourteous as some English call centre people, but that is about all you can say about them. The Indians speak Pidgin English, usually reading from a script, and if they have to deal with a complicated problem that they are not used to, they either get it wrong, or have to pass your call on to someone else. You feel there is little point in trying to explain your problem in detail because they just don’t understand the nuances of the English language or culture. Add to that the fact that they are very difficult to understand, and the whole experience becomes one of frustration and annoyance. Surely this is not how the big companies like to make their customers feel? Ultimately, I can only see it losing them money, as customers just ditch them for someone else.
(This is an aside grumble, but why do people from other countries not learn inflection and accent when they learn the language? One of the things that was drummed into us at school when learning French was that you do NOT use an English accent when you speak French. So for instance, if you are saying, ‘La plume de ma tante’, you DON’T say in a cockney accent, ‘La ploom de ma tont’)
Hats off to the online company eSure. They started using Indian call centres in 2004 but they have had so many customer complaints about them that they are bringing their call centre work back to the UK. Someone there must have realised that the money they saved in outsourcing was being quickly outstripped by lost customer sales.

My worst experience recently was ironically with the phone company Talk Talk. I had switched to them some months earlier with the promise of cheaper calls and line rental, and everything was fine until I wanted to move house. I thought I would give them fair warning, so rang their 'helpline', (an oxymoron if ever there was one!). I was led through the mind-numbing process of listening and responding to "If you want this, press 1, if you want that, press 2..." etc. When I did choose the number that corresponded to my query, I was cut off. I tried a second time, and the same thing happened. I rang again, and chose a different number, in an effort to get through to somebody. After waiting and listening to awful musak for 5 minutes, eventually somebody answered. When I told them of my problems trying to get the department I wanted from the automated answerphone, he apologised and said it wasn't a problem. He would put me through. Back to the dial tone again!

I left it a couple of days, because it had annoyed me so, and I didn't want to repeat the experience, but reasoned to myself that perhaps it was just a technical error, and that it must now be fixed. On ringing, and going through the usual rigmarole of tapping this and that number, I eventually got a call centre representative on the other end, in India! "Alor may nem is George ow may I help you todeh?" What I wanted to say was that your name is no more 'George' than mine is Hasmukh, but I decided not to. Obviously someone from the higher echelons of the company had probably hit on the bright idea that English people would feel more comfortable if they heard an English name at the other end, so had re-named all their Indian staff. They must think we were all born yesterday.

Anyway, I spoke to 'George', and told him that I was moving house in three weeks time, and that I would like to transfer my number and service to the new address. I would still need the phone at this address for the time being, but I was just giving them advance notice. He took my phone number down, ran some checks, then told me that I wasn't on the system. Had I had a new number recently, he wondered. No, I told him I had had this number for about 15 years with BT, and that I had been paying a monthly bill to Talk Talk on this number, so they must have a record of it. He told me to wait, and put me on hold. Minutes passed, and when he did come back, he said that it shouldn't be a problem, and that they would send me confirmation in the post. Okay. Done.

The next day I went to use the phone, only to discover I had a completely dead line. My internet was still working though...strange. Then the fun began. I had to phone Talk Talk's freephone number, but as my home phone wasn't working, I had to use my mobile and get charged for it. This time I eventually got through to 'Jane' in India. She apologised and promised to find out what had happened. I was put on hold again. She came back after speaking to her manager, and told me that my home number would be back on in three days to a week! Unhappy, but resigned to the fact, I thanked her and rang off.

A week passed. No phone. Ten days. No phone.
I rang them again, on my mobile again at my expense. Press buttons. Wait. India again. I couldn't understand the woman at all this time, even after asking her about three times to repeat what she was saying. Sensing my impatience, she decided, "I pot you trrru to may miniger". He was not much better, but I re-iterated my sorry story to him, and he promised he would sort it out, but that it may take three days to a week to re-connect me!

I never did get re-connected at the old address. They sent me two duplicate letters on the same day, telling me that they could not transfer my number to the new address because
a) It was not a valid BT number,
b) It was a new number, not yet registered or
c) It was a cable number.
If I phoned their helpline with the correct answer, they would be able to follow it up from there. I phoned them. An Indian man didn't understand me this time, so told me he would put me through to somebody else. Suddenly, I was speaking to a girl with the broadest Irish accent I'd ever heard. She told me that I would have to speak to someone on the technical side, and she put me through, this time to a broad Geordie girl! I was actually laughing at this point. She told me that it should be possible to transfer my number to the new address, but it would take about three weeks!
I would have been moved in for a fortnight by then, so I told her not to bother. I cancelled my account with them. For a communications company, I find it ironic that it was virtually impossible to communicate with anyone.
Verdict: Talk Talk don't Listen Listen!


I later phoned BT to enquire why Talk Talk kept telling me that my phone number was not a valid BT number. The man told me that it definitely was, but that if I wanted to transfer the number to my new address, I would firstly have to have it reconnected at my old address! He said BT could do it for me, but the whole process would take up to three weeks! I told him that I didn't necessarily need to hold on to that number. It didn't have any sentimental value or anything, and incidentally, how long would it take to install a new number at the new address. Also, could they provide Broadband, and how soon would that take? He told me that I could have a new phoneline plus broadband, plus free hub, free hub phone and free evening and weekend calls for 23 quid a month, up and running in five days! Guess which service I am using as I type?

Supermarkets

Oh dear. We've run out of bread. And Salad Cream. Perhaps I ought to go to Tesco's. And so it begins...

I wonder if this has ever happened to you. You decide that this time, you will not impulse-buy, and will only buy the things you need. A list. That's the best way. So you trawl through cupboards and drawers, and check the fridge and the freezer, and dutifully note down all that you need. Because you know it's going to be a trial, you think to yourself that'll you'll just have a coffee before you go. Another hour passes, while you watch a bit of tv, or surf the net. Eventually, you steel yourself for the ordeal, and get in the car to go shopping. You get to the car park, and here it starts. You do laps. You don't want to park a mile away, at the bottom of the car park where all the charity skips are, so you pootle around, ever vigilant for the movement of a car's rear end. There it is! You brake sharply and wait. The car reverses - and promptly drives back in again, but a bit more to the left to allow the fat driver to get out. The brake lights go off, and the door opens. You've wasted your time, and have to start a new lap.

Assuming that you eventually find a space that doesn't need a bus ride to get to, you then go in search of a trolley. There are hundreds scattered about the car park, but you want one that's been collected and taken back to the front door. You get to the entrance, and there are six trolleys left, and two more upside down that must have died. You grab the handle of the first trolley at exactly the same time as the young mum with the screaming brat superglued to her fist. You politely allow her to drag the trolley out, and she goes off into the store. You go to grab the next one, but it doesn't want to go with you. It is quite happy thank you being totally enmeshed to its mates, and is only broken free of its grip on them by a supreme effort and brute force. Chuffed with yourself, you set off. You then realise that one of the rear wheels seems to be possessed. You are travelling in a straight line, but this one wheel insists on twirling round and round and round. Trying to ignore it, you screech and clatter your way into the shop. You reach for your shopping list, only to realise that you've left it on the kitchen worktop. Never mind. You'll remember the list as you go round. You walk through the non-food section, trying to ignore it on your way to the food aisles. But there, on an end display are the magical words, 'Everything Must Go'. You reason that if everything must go, then it must be cheap, and maybe you ought to help it go. You scrabble through the reduced paraphenalia, looking for that thing that you might need, want, or maybe will need or want at some time in the future. Hmm - three rolls of sellotape for a pound. You do have sellotape in the drawer at home...but it might have dried out by now. Besides, it's Christmas in four months, and you'll need it then to wrap all those presents. Ooh - a trowel! And it's half price! Only £4.95. You pick it up to inspect it. Actually, there is a trowel at home somewhere. And when was the last time you used one? Hmm, maybe not. You put it back. But as you put it back, you notice that on the next end display, they not only have DVDs for only £5.99, but if you buy three, you can have them all for only £10! You can't pass up an offer like that, can you? Oh look. 'Saturday Night Fever'. You haven't seen that in years, and remember with fondness going to the cinema and watching it through twice, in the days before they threw you out after each showing. That would do for one. Now what else is there? Watership Down? nah... The Hulk...nah...got it anyway...it was shite. Superman, the original with Christopher Reeve! Nah...that was a bit shite too. And so it goes on. You eventually settle for Travolta, Alexander, because you haven't seen it, and don't believe what the critics said, and Swimfan, simply because you saw the trailer at the cinema and seem to remember some cute guy in speedos in it. It might be a good film anyway, you tell yourself. (It isn't, by the way, but you only realise that after you've sat half way through it and fallen asleep through boredom).

Enough dilly-dallying. You have shopping to do. Onwards to the fruit and veg aisle. Potatoes, onions, tomatoes, cucumber. Done. We've started. Turn the corner to get coffee and tea. In front of you is a huge woman, the bottom half of which is poured into lycra pants, and looks like a shrink-wrapped Michelin man. You try not to look because it is so disgusting, but at the same time you find it fascinating. You've never seen so many bits of one person jiggle and wobble in so many different directions all at the same time. You wonder how anyone could ever get into that state, then you happen to spot her trolley's contents. 200 Red Band cigarettes, 4 packs of lard, bacon pieces, chicken nuggets, a bag of frozen chips that half fills the trolley, ham, spam and jam. You wonder no longer.

You manage to get past her, grabbing the stuff you need, and head for the next aisle. In front of you now are three women, all with trolleys, who have decided that tesco is the best place to meet and discuss everything from their kids' school dinners to the price of loo rolls. They are totally oblivious to the fact that people are trying to shop. You say excuse me. Jabber jabber - nothing. You SHOUT excuse me. They turn to look at you like you've just thrown dog shit at them, and slowly move around in a circle, taking up exactly the same space as they did before, except they are all now facing in a different direction. They resume their chat, because after all, who do you think you are, shouting like that when all you had to do was ask. You sigh and raise your eyebrows, and feel your temperature rising. You decide to try to get through the narrow gap, and push your clattering, possessed trolley forwards. That is when the trolley decides it wants to turn right, so you end up crashing straight into the trolley of the woman nearest to you. She tuts and says 'Really!', and you smile weakly, and try to say, 'It's the trolley - sorry', but know instantly that she doesn't believe you because she has her face on upside-down.

Rounding the next corner, you hear a splat sound as a small child hits the floor spreadeagled, and the ear-piercing scream that follows. Suddenly its mutha appears, screaming almost as loudly as the child, admonishing it for messing about, and promising that if it doesn't shut up, she will give it something to cry for!

More muthas, more screaming kids. "Put that back! You're not having it!", "I won't tell you again!", "Right - no sweets!", "Wait 'til I get you home, young man!" etc., etc.

Some old lady asks you where anchovies are, before realising that you don't work there just because you have a striped shirt on today.

An old codger in a filthy mac brushes past your bare arm, smelling like a cross between gone-off fish and sewage. You reel, and promise yourself a bath as soon as you get home. Your arm now feels like it's radioactive, because you know that that old mac has tainted it, and you try not to keep that arm out of service until it can be fumigated.

Eventually, you decide you have it all, and head for the checkouts. You choose the shortest queue, only to discover that there is some hold up in front of you, and that the till-girl is flailing her arm in the air and flashing her red light, trying to attract the attention of a supervisor 6 tills away, who is busy trying to train a young chav-girl with stretched-back hair and hoop earrings. The girl is nodding but looking nonchalantly in a different direction, chewing gum, and wishing that she was back in boyfriend Darren's souped-up escort ghia, like she was last night...it was wicked.

You watch as all the other queues get served first, and you wonder why you decided to choose this till. You can practically feel the veins in your neck standing out. Then it's your turn. You refuse the offer of "Would you like help with your packing?", because you figure you can do it yourself quicker. If only you could open the damned carrier bags! You blow on them, scrunch them, wet your fingers, pick delicately at the edges, and hopefully they give up and open. Your trolley is reloaded with carrier bags, you pay for your shopping and leave!

At last, you have arrived home, slogged in and out from the car with all the bags, emptied the foodstuffs into their respective cupboards, and put the kettle on again, because it's time for a sandwich. Then you realise. You forgot to buy bread!

And Salad Cream.

Driving

I have been driving for over 30 years. I passed my Driving test first time, and like all teenagers, was happy as Larry, (whoever Larry is). Driving my own car was not only a great way to find myself independent of Public transport or 'Dad's Taxi'. It was also FUN! I'm not saying that I was ever a boy racer, but I did enjoy travelling around in my old Vauxhall Viva, picking up friends and going places. I dare say that because the roads were quieter then, most people would find themselves speeding at some point, but accidents seemed no more apparent then than now. The main deterrent was the little blue panda, or the flashier 'jam sandwich' police car, usually discreetly parked just out of view, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting speedsters. Saying that though, often the police involved would sometimes just pull you up, talk to you as if you were 5, and tell you not to do it again. You would apologise profusely, make lame excuses, and doff your metaphorical cap at the copper, and once he'd returned to his car, you'd continue your journey, albeit a bit more slowly.

Nowadays, you stand no chance. Since that wonderful invention, the 'safety camera' became part of our highway furniture, there are few people who have not been stung at some point, and had to cough up their hard-earned money to swell the coffers of their local authorities. There is no doubt that there has to be some merit in preventing accidents by whatever means possible, but I am not convinced that the Stealth Tax Camera is any more than just that - a legalised way of robbing Joe Public of yet more of his cash. If this were not the case, then how do they explain siting cameras on dual carriageways, and then reducing the speed limit in order to catch as many people as possible? This photo shows a stretch of pedestrian-free A34 dual carriageway, equipped with crash barriers, and yet the speed limit was dropped to 50 mph when the camera appeared on the scene. It is difficult to see how this could be an accident blackspot. It would also be interesting to see how many thousands of pounds this camera alone has made. Multiply that by the thousands of cameras around the country, and we are on a hiding to nothing. The Gatso is the modern equivalent of the Sheriff of Nottingham's tax collectors, waiting beside the road to mug you for your wallet.

If that's not bad enough, we pay ever-increasing road tax every year, only 2% of which is used to pay for road upkeep. Then we pay more tax every time we pay for petrol, and VAT is added to everything else you may have to buy for your car, including the fluffy dice! You pay a charge to travel into London, and they are expanding that fast-buck idea by adding a toll to all major roads. That will force more motorists onto the badly kept back roads, but don't worry, you won't escape. With all the extra cash they're making, they'll be able to buy more Gatsos, and link them together on those same back roads so that if you speed up between cameras, they will know and take your wallet anyway!

Another stupid idea to help ruin the motorists' day is local councils seen-to-be-doing-something plan of building speed humps everywhere, using the phrase 'traffic-calming' as the excuse. I currently drive an MGf. I have had to have two new tyres fitted in the last year because of punctures which have appeared on the inner walls of the tyres. The man that fitted them told me that he has seen this problem before. Unfortunately, the MGf being a small car can barely straddle the brick and tarmac obstacles without scuffing the inner walls of the tyres. Great. Not only do they slow my car to less than 20mph in a 30mph zone trying to negotiate the damned things, but also I get to buy twice as many tyres as everyone else! There are two main types that cause damage to my car. The speed 'cushions', which are anything but, are the ones that wear my tyres. The actual 'humps' cause the mudflaps underneath my car to scrape along the ground. If I attempt to drive at anything like 30mph, the low clearance means the chassis crashes down on to the road, jolting not only the car, but also me inside.

There have been many documented cases of speed humps actually causing spinal problems and even complete paraplegia in some people, but their use becomes more widespread although there is no evidence that they reduce accidents, which is surely their intended purpose.

It is no better when you arrive in any town these days. Then you have the joy of trying to find somewhere to park your vehicle, find enough ready cash in your pocket to pay the meter or buy a ticket. Who actually carries around pocketfuls of loose change these days? I use my Bank debit card to pay for most things, which means you have to remember to ask for cash-back when you go supermarket shopping, before you reach town, or find a cashpoint machine. This of course only pays out in notes, so then you have to find a local newsagent and buy a newspaper or chewing gum that you didn't really want, just so you have loose change for the Council's car park! Okay. You've found a space, you've paid your fee, and you've gone off merrily searching for bargains in town. Woe betide you if the girl at the checkout in that last shop is a bit slow. If you arrive back at your car two minutes late, you will usually find some smug ne'er-do-well in Council uniform has just taped a parking ticket on your windscreen, and you know that you are instantly £40-£60 out of pocket again. If only that shop hadn't been selling car polish on a 'Buy One Get One Free' basis, you wouldn't have been queueing all that time anyway! The polish has now cost you the equivalent of whatever you paid for it PLUS the fine, which makes it less of a bargain after all. Never mind. At least when you use your car polish to shine up your pride and joy on Sunday morning, you know that your car will look the prettiest of the bunch in the stack of Gatso photos yet to be taken!

Christmas

Christmas, or should that be Consumermas? As soon as everyone has returned from their summer holidays, and is counting the cost of that, and how much more their credit card bill is going to be each month, the retail bombardment of everything Christmassy starts. From about the end of September, stores start to remove the sun-tan lotions and sunglasses, and replace them with fake pop-up Christmas trees in boxes, baubles, cards and various items of festive ephemera. As the weeks progress, and the days become shorter, retailers have the perfect excuse to light up their windows with flashing, strobing, coursing rope lights, tree lights and decorations. For those lovers of all things Christmassy, it can't come soon enough, and they can't wait to show off to the world what fun, happy people they are by festooning their houses with the damned things. Apart from the cost of buying them, their electricity bill for December must be astronomical. Then of course, if they have neighbours who don't like to be outdone, they have to buy more to become top in the Christmas 'joy' stakes in their street.

People rush here and there, buying useless presents for family members and friends, only to receive equally useless presents back! I have, like so many other people, received clothes that don't fit, or that you simply wouldn't be seen dead in, along with those must-have items, like a battery-powered tie rack, or battery-powered shoe polisher, socks that light up or play a tune, or the good old standby, the car cleaning kit, perhaps wrapped in a seasonal box and including a novelty Santa sponge. But we can't be seen to be grumpy about it, especially at Christmas time, so we smile sweetly, thank them profusely, and say 'It's just what I always wanted".

If you do manage to fight your way through the crowds and buy all your presents, and write all your cards and post them to people you are only reminded of once a year, and stock up with enough food to see you through a nuclear winter, you then have the wonderful day itself to get through. If you have small children, there is about 40 minutes in the morning when they ooh and aah at their presents and that latest 'craze' toy that you've spent weeks trying to hunt down. It almost makes it all seem worthwhile. Then you realise that you forgot to buy batteries for it, or you need to fetch a spanner from the shed to undo the nut that is holding the damned thing to its packaging! That sorted, the kiddies are happy and run off to break something expensive. You can relax. Except you can't, because your partner has just informed you that although they have bought enough food to feed a school, they forgot to buy gravy powder. You then have to spend the next hour driving around a ghost town, looking at closed shutters on shops, hoping to find at least ONE Mr Patel who has decided to stay open. Well, the turkey dinner wouldn't be the same without gravy would it?

Why do we only eat turkey at Christmas? Is it because it is such a delectable, rare and delicious treat that it has to be saved for such a special occasion? No. It is bland, dry and tasteless and so has to be enlivened with - cranberry sauce? Whoever had the bright idea of spreading jam on your dinner to make it more tasty? Along with the turkey, the plate has to be piled high with Paxo stuffing, brussel sprouts, cold cabbage, over-roasted potatoes and mash, yorkshire puddings, and all quickly covered over with lashings of gravy, thanks to your foray into the wilderness. If you manage to plough through that lot, you have the traditional sweet to look forward to. Again, it is a dish reserved specially for this day, and why? Because it tastes too vile to eat on more than one day a year! Christmas pudding with rum-flavoured sauce. What a delightful plate of stodge to pile on top of your already bulging stomach. Pull the crackers, don the silly party hats, read the awful jokes e.g. 'Why did the sausage roll? Because it saw the apple turnover', play with the useless plastic toy for 5 seconds, and retire to the nearest easy chair to chat or play games, and generally socialise with distant family members.

Christmas is a time for families, so they are all rounded up from far flung outposts and penned into this one room together, when half of them have been desperately trying to avoid the other half all year! It starts with the false smiles, and the "So good to see you", and "You haven't changed a bit", followed swiftly by the theatrical kiss, and an immediate search for a space as far away from each other as possible. If drinks start flowing, tongues become loosened, and simmering guests start snipping at each other. If you manage to shepherd your festive flock through the entire day without tears before bedtime, maybe you should consider changing careers to that of a United Nations Peacekeeper.

Body Image

Who doesn't worry about their body image? Every day, from magazines, tv, and huge billboards, we are reminded that maybe we don't have the 'perfect' body. All the beautiful people used in advertising smile almost sarcastically down at us ugly, too-skinny or too-fat types, with a look that says 'Don't you wish you looked this good? When we are in our youth, we worry endlessly that everyone is laughing their tits off at what we perceive to be a huge zit on the side of our noses, or we worry that our chests are too small, or our bums too big. None of those worries go away. They just become part of a larger list of faults we find with ourselves.

Where did this constant worry start? People today think that aspiring to the 'body beautiful' image is a modern thing, and so it is. But it started really with the advent of cinema. As far back as the silent movies, women wanted to look like the stars they saw onscreen. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Lillian Gish were all being wooed by their counterpart male stars like Ronald Coleman, Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

The sales of hair products and make-up increased, and similarly, the men realised that they had to be more suave, or more muscular to attract the ladies. Gyms opened for the men, and hair salons became de rigeur for the ladies. And so the die was cast. Men and women would never again simply be worried that they had a roof over their heads, or food in their bellies. Now they had to look gorgeous too. With talkies and then colour movies, the images became more sexual, more glamourous and ever harder to compete with.

People were almost shocked to see Burt Lancaster rolling around the beach with Deborah Kerr in 'From Here to Eternity', or Marilyn Monroe in films such a 'Some Like It Hot' but it paved the way for the sexual revolution to come in the late '50's and early '60's

Nowadays, of course, we see sexual images on tv and cinema all the time, and hardly bat an eyelid, but the images of the 'pretty people' only serve to heighten our sense of personal inadequacy. We now have programmes on tv like "Extreme Makeover" where people are quite happy to have their faces and bodies butchered into shape, just to fit in with the idea that if you are not beautiful, you really should be ashamed of yourself. Once transformed thus, you can hold your head up high, be the life and soul of the party, be successful, and generally loved by everyone who sees you. Of course, nobody wants to think that when they step out of their front door old ladies and small children will scream and run for cover, but realistically, when is that ever likely to happen? If someone is tragically disfigured in an accident, or maybe born with a cleft palate or worse, then plastic surgery certainly has a place. Because we live in such a judgemental society, nobody wants to be considered a 'freak'. But because people see shows like this, they are starting to believe that it's perfectly acceptable to hack pieces off themselves or add pieces on in their quest for perfection. Plastic surgery is seen as a quick-fix, or a cure-all to whatever other inadeqacies people may feel about themselves. Michael Jackson is the ultimate example of when it all goes wrong. His father tormented him throughout his childhood, calling him ugly and bignosed. Here was a guy who had it all. He was a good-looking African American boy who was rich and famous beyond most peoples' dreams, but he had huge issues with his own body image. No doubt after the first piece of surgery to reduce the size of his nose, he came out of that with such a 'high' that he then decided to alter every other thing he didn't like about himself. After so many surgeries, his face now looks like he is the victim of a terrible car crash.

There is another tv show that uses shock tactics to now scare parents into altering the look of their children. "Honey we're killing the kids" takes usually fat children, mixes and morphs their image with those of the parents, and bloats and generally tries to disfigure the face into something horrific, assuring the parents that this is what their child will look like at aged 40. It is true that the UK is following the US in producing a nation of obese children, but it is not all down to bad diet. Since the Thatcher years of the 1980's, where everything had to show a profit or get sold, thousands of school playing fields were systematically disposed of, leaving less space for the organised Physical Education of children. Add to that the fact that most children get taxied to school and back, and are not allowed out to play near their homes for fear of abduction, and the child is bound to gain weight. Sitting in front of an XBox 360 is not the same as playing 'wars' or 'Cowboys and Indians' as we did as children. Okay, so maybe it was not politically correct, but at least we got exercise. With all the advice of healthy diet forced upon us by the media, we should all be a nation of svelte, beautiful people, but instead, people get fatter and fatter. It could be down to the fact that these days, lots of Mums go out to work, so don't have the time to prepare proper meals for their families. Instead, it is far easier to throw something in a microwave, and present it five minutes later as 'dinner'. Once these bad eating habits are established, it is hard to get out of them. Even if we escape being a tubby child, once the onset of age takes over, and our metabolisms slow down, the weight piles on anyway.

It could be said that Marlon Brando here is a classic example of how we can go from gorgeous to engorged, but the change is slow and insidious, so we don't notice until it's too late. The only thing you can say for certain is that when you are more 'mature' let's say, you wish to hell you looked as good as you did in your youth!

Of course, it is no longer really a problem. You can simply eat whatever you feel like, do no exercise whatsoever, smoke and drink to excess, and when you feel that you no longer like the look of your bloated and wrinkled frame and brown teeth, you can simply remortgage the house, and after treating yourself to liposuction, a facelift and porcelain caps on your teeth, you will look 19 and beautiful once more!