The Gamers Arms

Oh man I loved Derek and Clive, taped LPs of their stuff were gold when I was at school. Derek and Clive Get The Horn is still hilarious to watch. Thanks for that!

Lancaster City Council - utterly sodding useless. They’re basically the Vogons from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

I was on holiday for a couple of weeks at the end of August, so I checked if the bin collection dates would be impacted because of the bank holiday while I was away. They’d fucked around with it around one of the bank holidays in May and emptied the bins a full week earlier, or rather they cruised around emptying nothing because they hadn’t told anybody about the date change. Anyway, the calendar was unchanged for August and September.

So I come back from holiday with a week before the next collection, on a Monday. Only they didn’t collect my bins. Turns out the bin dates had changed in the fortnight since I’d last checked, and you’d only know about it if you went looking for it on the council website. The first collection on the new day was the Friday just gone, while I’d been out all day and so not heard the bin lorry. That meant I had another two weeks until the next collection, which was today.

Today they’ve finally emptied my main bin but not my recycling. I checked the calendar again and nothing suggests anything’s changed around recycling, so I went to report a missed collection. The system errors, so that’s not an option. After some digging around I find another notification hidden away which states that recycling and waste are now emptied on alternating weeks.

Have they no concept of notifying people of changes in advance? Am I supposed to scour their website (probably soon to be hosted in their new basement on Alpha Centauri) on a daily basis on the off-chance the days change again suddenly? Or if the bins have to be arranged in a particular fashion, or maybe have the waste alphabetised? Fucking jobsworths.

All councils are utterly inept. Fact.

Err, hate to say it Wrath but they did announce those changes in advance. Not only did they send out the recycling date cards (these things) several weeks in advance, but I knew about it before then too, although I'm not sure how I found it out. I guess you were unlucky that you've not received that info. The bin collections should no longer be affected by bank holidays and recycling now goes with the green bin rather than the grey, so rubbish and recycling will now alternate.

Now Council Tax, that's my particular issue with our council. I submitted a sole occupancy reduction request nearly 6 weeks ago and haven't heard anything. Contacting the council for anything is a pain in the arse, but I'm going to have to phone them else I'm paying them fifty quid a month extra.

Raid wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:44 pm

Err, hate to say it Wrath but they did announce those changes in advance. Not only did they send out the recycling date cards (these things) several weeks in advance

Nope. Not had one of those for over two years now. I used to get them and then they stopped for some reason. I had zero warning in advance, and as I said, I checked the online calendar in mid-August and there was no indication of a change.

When the Govt says don't panic buy....

Yep I had to panic buy last night because of other people panic buying. Was a less than quarter tank and I needed the car. Bunch of idiots.

The only three petrol stations in my town are all closed and out of fuel. Lived here 30 years and never seen even one run dry before. People are idiots, but the govt even more so for starting the panic.

Coming out of the pandemic is becoming a bit of disaster. Taxes at an all time high + inflation + logistic issues + shortages. Economists are celebrating that income wages are now in the ascendancy but that in time that will become inflationary resulting with possible interest rates going up resulting with higher mortgages resulting with people becoming poorer - offsetting any increase in wages.

The whole thing is a mess.

I think there's a real cognitive dissonance when it comes to panic buying. The number of people I've seen saying that panic buyers are the problem, and then they go and buy the same thing because they're worried all of the panic buyers will clear the stocks... that's panic buying.

I don't even blame the government, it's the sodding media that are the problem. Don't get me wrong, the government are the ones that allowed it to be an issue, but the moment a media outlet starts showing a single closed forecourt, it puts the idea in the publics' heads that there's a shortage. If I got up in the middle of a crowded theatre and yelled "Fire! There's a fire! We're all going to burn!" I'd be arrested for causing a panic.

The government handling of the entire thing has been a catastrophe though. They are literally asleep at the wheel and not making any kind of contingency plans for issues they were long warned about.

The wages rising is a bit of a red herring too. Certain professions are seeing a rise because they are literally in the middle of a workforce crisis. For most ordinary working people, wages are pottering along the the usual rate they have for the last decade or even regressing due to rises not keeping up with inflation or tax increases.

I’d say Grant Schapps and the media are equally to blame in this instance. Schapps told the media that there was no need to panic buy, which the media of course plastered over every headline. What the hell did he think was going to happen?

So Johnson is blaming the problem on there not being enough foreign drivers coming into the country. Whose fucking fault is that?

That darn pesky previous Labour government of course.

Taking back control, right? Welcome to Brexit reality, it was always a stupid fucking idea and now we can see the proof.