modern life is rubbish

[Mrs Pingu]

You don't get cardboard boxes picked up as part of your recycling collection then?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Oh yes. My tip trip was to dump a trailer- and boot- load of old kitchen flooring. We also made another journey, in the opposite direction during which we collected a trailer- and boot- load of new kitchen flooring. One day we will have a new kitchen to go with it.. ..when Covid permits. Then we will be able to eat cooked food again.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Until then, you need a Trangia! Or a Jet Boil or a Boy Scout with two twigs.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

We tried cooking a 3 course for two on the pocket rocket but now we have the student's friend - a twin hob electric hot plate from Argos.  It's all very rough luxe



till April.

[ian]

Good god, the fire/CO/sleep alarm has chirruped off its mortal coil. Slightly narked after recent discussion that it's optical, since I was thinking of the fun stuff I could do with americium. My tritium count is probably almost background, I'm relying on carbon-14 for my healthy glow.

Rubbish, why, you might ask? Because detectors have moved in the seven years since I bought it. And now, seriously, the fuckery with which you have to put up when attempting to buy a replacement. I don't fucking need it to interface with wifi and a fucking phone app. I want something with a nocturnal neighbourhood shattering beep that will knock me out of the land of nod. I do not need seven choices of alarm tone. I just don't want to burn to death in my sleep or take a CO-cruise into the great beyond. I don't want to groggily stumble into the afterlife to the bloody Ride of the Valkyries.

[Kim]

People who need to switch off their bicycle lights are contemplating jar lids.

[Canardly]

Very heavy triple layered curtains in lounge have just pulled the  xxxxxxxx pole bracket fixings out of the wall AGAIN! Pole now hanging by a single screw on the LH bracket. Can I simply screw the thing back in? Can I xxxxx ! The upper component half of the bracket prevents access to the screw heads. Will Have to take the whole lot down in the morning. House made of ticky tacky. Additional brackets now ordered -  bugger! Now where did I put the SDS drill?

[Kim]

I had to deal with one of those recently.  Gave up and fitted a batten, and (on barakta's advice) painted it with some magnolia emulsion that was lingering in ye shedde so it would look like a landlord had done it.

(Landlords being a significant source of rubbishness in modern life.)

[Canardly]

I may have to do just that Kim.

[ian]

Suffering a bout of modern organization and switching suppliers of thing, which modern life thinks is a valuable use of my time, and modern life is quite wrong about.

On the plus side, as mentioned, I'm several hundred pounds richer on home insurance (really, L&G were serving us a shitburger) and when we (ok, my wife, I don't talk to people on the phone*) called them they told us to fuck off if we wanted a discount.

Dithering over gas and electricity tells me there's really not a lot of difference to what we're paying now, it's like a tenner here and there. That's really disappointing because I wanted confirmation that British Gas were radioactively shite.

And broadband, which BT did respond to a haggle over, but apparently £37 is the best they can do, which is a bit stinky compared to new deals, but of course, do you trust two broadband suppliers, when united to swap your connection, to not fuck it up? Go ahead, make my day.

*it's true, I have a mental disease. I know it makes no sense, I talk to people all fucking day and get paid to do it, but ask me to phone a call centre, and that's it, game over man, game over.

[Canardly]

I noted via CC that russian supermarkets are on their way over here claiming to be 30% cheaper than the other discounters. Branded as 'Mere' thousands of branches already exist apparently. Should bring the price of cabbage down. Their sales model reminds me of one of the early supermarkets here Victor Value. Stack it high and sell it cheap -  but from pallets.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

I noted via CC that russian supermarkets are on their way over here claiming to be 30% cheaper than the other discounters. Branded as 'Mere' thousands of branches already exist apparently. Should bring the price of cabbage down. Their sales model reminds me of one of the early supermarket here Victor Value. Stack it high and sell it cheap -  but from pallets.

Oh, the irony..  Back in the USSR:

[rafletcher]

Stack it high and sell it cheap -  but from pallets.

ASDA, Aberdeen, c1983.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I noted via CC that russian supermarkets are on their way over here claiming to be 30% cheaper than the other discounters. Branded as 'Mere' thousands of branches already exist apparently. Should bring the price of cabbage down. Their sales model reminds me of one of the early supermarket here Victor Value. Stack it high and sell it cheap -  but from pallets.

Oh, the irony..  Back in the USSR:

Where on earth and when was that?

[Mr Larrington]

Same photo has been doing the rounds for at least ten years but is definitely Russia, and the Soviet Union, and Venezuela, and…

[ian]

I think it actually is Venezuela. Though the actual source is down as no one in Venezuela is up to paying their hosting fees at the moment.

I'm pretty sure the Russians don't label their aisles with English and Spanish, plus the colour yellow wasn't readily available in Russia until 2017.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is there Spanish too? I can't make out what's written under eg "Bread". So primarily English and also Spanish: could be Puerto Rico or Gibraltar? 

[phantasmagoriana]

The bread aisle in my local Tesco looked just like that at some point in March 2020.

[ian]

Is there Spanish too? I can't make out what's written under eg "Bread". So primarily English and also Spanish: could be Puerto Rico or Gibraltar? 

I found a bigger version, bread is pan for instance, and those snack cakes are pastelitos. The lady is definitely Hispanic and she's wearing a big Jesus Christ t-shirt.

OK, I should caveat, it's used in several Venezuelan media sources, but it could be anywhere from Florida south (I'm not sure South America would label the aisles in English and subtitle them in Spanish). If I had to revise my answer, I might actually plump for Florida, that looks like the result of a pre-Hurricane panic buy.

I can't find a credited version anywhere, but I am now voting for Florida. If so, the irony, of course, is splendid.

[rr]

I had to deal with one of those recently.  Gave up and fitted a batten, and (on barakta's advice) painted it with some magnolia emulsion that was lingering in ye shedde so it would look like a landlord had done it.

(Landlords being a significant source of rubbishness in modern life.)

Frame fixings, into the lintel or block work beneath the dry lining or the the plaster, are the answer.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

[ian]

I think that because I make decisions all day, I'm all out of decision making capability by the evening. I was honestly sat there last night looking at a list of broadband providers blank-eyed with a string of drool escaping my mouth to decorate my shirt. It high stakes, my wife has made it clear she's running umpteen virtual meetings soon and if I break the broadband, she breaks me. She even illustrated this point with a nutcracking gesture. Crunch. She could and would.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is there Spanish too? I can't make out what's written under eg "Bread". So primarily English and also Spanish: could be Puerto Rico or Gibraltar? 

I found a bigger version, bread is pan for instance, and those snack cakes are pastelitos. The lady is definitely Hispanic and she's wearing a big Jesus Christ t-shirt.

OK, I should caveat, it's used in several Venezuelan media sources, but it could be anywhere from Florida south (I'm not sure South America would label the aisles in English and subtitle them in Spanish). If I had to revise my answer, I might actually plump for Florida, that looks like the result of a pre-Hurricane panic buy.

I can't find a credited version anywhere, but I am now voting for Florida. If so, the irony, of course, is splendid.

Florida or not, it definitely isn't the USSR. Nor even Russia.

[ian]

Is there Spanish too? I can't make out what's written under eg "Bread". So primarily English and also Spanish: could be Puerto Rico or Gibraltar? 

I found a bigger version, bread is pan for instance, and those snack cakes are pastelitos. The lady is definitely Hispanic and she's wearing a big Jesus Christ t-shirt.

OK, I should caveat, it's used in several Venezuelan media sources, but it could be anywhere from Florida south (I'm not sure South America would label the aisles in English and subtitle them in Spanish). If I had to revise my answer, I might actually plump for Florida, that looks like the result of a pre-Hurricane panic buy.

I can't find a credited version anywhere, but I am now voting for Florida. If so, the irony, of course, is splendid.

Florida or not, it definitely isn't the USSR. Nor even Russia.

I googled a bit more, it's a Miami grocery store, so as an illustration of the failure of socialism, erm.

[Peter]

Manager used to work for tele-sales - selling space.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

I’ve not the foggiest where it is.

However, I do remember very well the stories of scarcity in communist Russia,

this sort of thing:

https://dustyoldthing.com/inside-soviet-grocery-store/

Clearly when you have such memories this news

“I noted via CC that russian supermarkets are on their way over here claiming to be 30% cheaper than the other discounters. Branded as 'Mere' thousands of branches already exist apparently. Should bring the price of cabbage down. Their sales model reminds me of one of the early supermarkets here Victor Value. Stack it high and sell it cheap -  but from pallets.“

contains traces of irony (irony: a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.)

This I am sure exonerates me from the need for any further explanation.