Twoddle

DPD UK Delivery Services missed my parcel collection not once but twice. First time I was given a window of 1 hour for when they would arrive at my door but I heard nothing, no bell ring, no knock, no phone call, no "sorry we missed you" note, nothing. Just an SMS text, "When our driver arrived we were advised there was nothing to collect". So I rebooked for them to come a week later on my day off work. This time I stood by the door waiting for them to arrive within the 1 hour window at my address. NOTHING, they didn't even come! and I got the same SMS text, "When our driver arrived we were advised there was nothing to collect"! Funny thing is there's no easy way to phone them on the website, no phone number in sight so I ended up paying again and sending it via the post office. I also don't see any way to get my money back from DPD. I'm starting to think the DPD driver went to the post office to collect my parcel when it was clear in all communications including when I received the 1 hour notification that they would come to my address and ring/knock/phone when they got here. Complete BS, I will not be using them again and they will get a zero out of ten.

That's a bit rich, they've been saying "Coming soon to your area", (ie. to my exact address and post code), on the website for the last couple of years. Sod 'em, I with BT full fibre now anyway.

Wish they'd ticket that bloody lorry that parks on double yelows next to the traffic lights making deliveries to the Coop with its engine running.

I don't click social media links but I did recently watch a video on Stephen Hendry's YouTube channel from inside John Parris's workshop. 8 year waiting list for a custom cue!

Notice this more now you come to mention it. People saying "thank you SO much" sounds so cringy when leaving the cashier, where a simple "thank you" would suffice.

Might I also suggest changing your default search engine to something like DuckDuckGo that doesn't track you at all. If you really want to see Google results from with DuckDuckGo you can just add !g to the beginning of the search as a one off. Firefox has settings to block social media tracking scripts, cross-site cookies etc. If you want it to block ads you'll have to install an addon like uBlock Origin although youtube is starting to get funny over adblockers. You can still whitelist individual sites like this one to allow its ads.

My bad. Can I get a cheese slice and an Americano?

Major incident apparently.

I've become wary of buying oranges now especially ones sold in packets and bags. Apparently they're treated and sprayed and/or were kept frozen to look newer and riper than they really are. They can look ripe, plump and colourful when you buy them but in a matter of days you pick one out and it's gone completely moldy which as anyone knows has probably infected the others and you have to chuck em out.

Nevermind, it's all good. From 2010 - "FAIL" Seems to have gone out of fashion.

With the Tesco one you need a good connection to the internet in the store to use it at the till. Sometimes they have WiFi but the App still takes ages to open. I ordered the card version but of course it never arrived in the post. The Coop one is insulting, takes me six months of regular shopping to build up a couple of quid on the card. They had adverts on the telly recently advertising huge discounts, that lasted a couple of weeks on very few actual products. Of course the real reason for these schemes is so they can collect data on you so they can charge more. Look what happened to the price of milk and baked beans. Express Coop don't even stock their own brand of baked beans any more. Prices correlate with calorific count these days so you can't escape it. It's artificial intelligence gone mad and what the computer says goes, no human interaction except for them to tell you what the computer says.

Apple devices "just work" but then you're tied to Apple and you have to go to a licensed Apple store for repairs who in turn must use approved procedures and components. You can't repair your own kit with conventional tools, you don't fully own your device once you bought it and there's a huge EULA you must agree to. I'm not fine with this personally, it's not what I'm into computers for at all.

16GB RAM to be comfortable. 32GB RAM is overkill unless you're an enthusiast doing stuff that requires it. 4GB RAM is not enough, 8GB is probably enough to get by for now. Bear in mind that many laptops use will use a chunk of RAM for graphics memory or VRAM, for example, if you get a laptop advertised as having 8GB RAM, while true it may actually only have between 5 and 6GB free for the user. For storage it really must have an SSD, Solid State Drive, otherwise it will crawl running Windows 11. Get an SSD with at least 256GB capacity, go higher to 512GB and beyond if you've got loads of videos and pictures to put on it. Or you could get a laptop with a hard drive for storage, say 1TB, alongside the SSD for running the OS and installing programs on. Apart from that make sure it's got a fairly up to date CPU and a nice screen. Also depends on how much you wanna spend and what size screen.

Can't find it written in stone but as an ex bus driver I remember always being instructed to treat all bus stops on diversion as request stops. Yeah there are a few seemingly grumpy drivers but don't judge till you've done it yourself, 10 to 12 hour duties some of them in shift patterns, for a bunch of years.

For me the 176 diversion was a pleasant surprise. Fell asleep on the bus and when I woke up it was traveling off route nearer to my final destination. Buses are obliged to stop at all bus stops on diversion when requested so that saved me a long walk :).

Same situation, probably geting worse. Get nothing for ages, weeks turn into months and once in a blue moon we get a batch of late importance letters together with a load of junk.

Because scammers can get through basic security checks if they have your details somehow and pretend to be you.

It's frightening, everything is now done online and easy but there's a tradeoff between security and convenience. The easier it is to prove your identity, the easier it is for scammers to do the same thing should they get hold of your information. Common ways they get your information is through email phishing attacks or it could be a person on the phone pretending to be from your bank, or data breach. DON'T click anything in emails unless you're expecting it and are 100% sure, instead go to the secure website starting with https and navigate to your issue from there. No one is really immune from an attack though, we're all susceptible if caught off guard, like if a fake email arrives that just happens to coincide with something you're involved in.

Can't rely on this bus at Streatham end when the last two buses at night don't even turn up. Was a rainy night as well.

The adult gym in the middle of Peckham Rye Park is currently being demolished and rebuilt bigger and better which is great news! Was chatting to one of the workmen this morning, great chap btw, and apparently it's being extended 5 metres with more bars and equipment. So, less contention for people who want to workout at the same time and more variety. Awesome!

Chill, and be respectful to each other. I would like to play music and prefer to have sound from my computer games coming out the loudspeakers but I choose not to because I know neighbours can hear it especially the bass. Try to find common ground, peace.

More of a bridge man myself but backgammon is OK too although I haven't played for ages. Used to be into chess as well but it's those away games where you have travel across London in the cold and dark to play for 4 hours only to blunder the game away in one move that put me off.

Not cola and not Sainsbury's but the plastic bottled Ribena I bought with my Tesco's value meal the other day definitely tasted funny, nothing like the Ribena I remember at all. Could just be that I'm not used to drinking soft drinks, preferring water usually. Or it could be that the recipe's been "new and improved" so many times since I last bought it.

Order the parts off Amazon and build your own! You may even be able to fit it in your existing case. Seriously though, hard discs are too slow for Windows 10/11 nowadays and OEM machines come loaded with bloatware on top. Get something with an SSD (Solid State Drive) of at least 256GB and at least 8GB of RAM as a starting point and your new system will fly.

Love a good mince pie. The problem is if I buy a box for myself they will be gone in one sitting or polished off shortly after. Always hated custard and coconut which might as well be sawdust. Is it Quality Street leaving out the Bounties this year?