I'll think of a good title later

Yay! It's just a Lipoma which is benign.

At the weekend my Mum was about to bake one of her much sought after Victoria Sponges. She turned on the oven which plunged the whole village into darkness. After flipping the trip switch back on the cooker seemed to be working ok, but after an hour of baking the cake mix was still, well, cake mix.

The top oven & grill threw in the towel a couple of years ago so it was time to buy a new cooker. Dad is currently in hospital so I managed to blag a day off work to get a replacement. Unfortunately Mum has a deep-rooted distrust of the interweb & likes to see things before she buys them so it was going to be a day of traipsing round the stores.

I had previously looked online for some consumer reviews of which there are woefully few but I told Mum that we should look for something from LG, Samsung or Whirlpool who seem to consistantly get good feedback.

"I don't want an LG they're no good."

"When have you used an LG?"

"I haven't."

"Then how do you know they're no good?"

"People say they have problems."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"Then why did you say that?"

Silence.

At this point I knew it was going to be a long day.

First up it was off to a couple of big retail stores in Eastbourne. On the way there I instructed Mum, "Whatever you do, don't tell anyone that the cooker blew up. They will not feel sorry for you, they will be thinking kerr-ching!"

Into Store 1 & things were off to a bad start. It was quickly apparent that a freestanding electric cooker that we were after are not as popular as a fitted cooker. After a few minutes of searching I managed to find the freestanding cooker section hidden behind one fo the LCD TVs. The selection barely survived inspection & showed no signs of being able to cook a meal so we hastily moved on.

Store 2 was a bit better in that there was a bit more choice, but it had none of the better brands that I wanted Mum to look at. We did find a Zanussi model that we were both happy with. Mum was ready to buy it there & then but I wanted to keep looking so I did. While I had my head in another oven I heard the terrifying sound of, "Can I help you?"

I was up & running immediately, leap frogged a Belling but still couldn't get there in time to stop Mum telling the sales assistant that the cooker had blown up. Oh well. I got the assistant to check the stock, found out that 'installation' (more on that later...) would be £55. I asked if they had any of the other brands that I wanted to show Mum available, the assistant winced, "You'll have to pay a lot of money for one of those... a lot of money" I took that as a no. Still disappointed with what we had seen we left for the next store.

I didn't want to go to Store 3, an independent business which I've always thought of as very expensive but Mum wouldn't have any of it & insisted that we should go. I reminded Mum not to tell anyone about the cooker blowing up. We went upstairs to the cooker department & immediately we found the same Zanussi that we had already looked at, for £100 more than the first place. For once Mum didn't need any more convincing. I was nearly out the door when I heard Mum talking about how the cooker had blown up & had to go back in. The sales assistant at least acknowledged that other brands were available but wasn't able to help. We left with an armful of oven porn.

We then made it to the next town. Christmas madness was in full swing with lots of very angry people driving their cars at each other as if they have an on/off switch rather than an accelerator pedal & clutch. Parking up & walking proved as always to be the quicker option. Store 4, nothing but cookers for fitted kitchens. Store 5 - I could have sworn they had cookers in there the last time I was conned into going in but apparently not. Store 6, more of the same handful of basic models. Store 7, another branch of Store 2, they had that Zanussi again & a few others. Mum was losing patience & again just wanting to buy it because it was there. I swear retail is all about wearing people down so that they just give in, but I drove Mum on.

We then came to Store 8, John Lewis a supposedly up market department store. Everything was very spangly & well presented, they even had a few of the higher quality brands that were proving so elusive. However, we were very surprised to see our Zanussi for £20 less than Store 2/7. We had been coming back to this same cooker all day so I conceded that this was the one I was going to buy. I had another unsuccessful attempt at trying to convince Mum to let me buy it over the interweb, but alas no. When we tried to buy the thing we found out that John Lewis has a Ryan Air style pricing policy. Installation was £65, disposal of old cooker was £9, I can't remember what delivery was & they couldn't deliver until next year anyway. I allowed Mum to tell the assistant about how the cooker had blown up which cut the sales pitch short & allowed us to walk away.

Back in Store 7 we sat down to buy the Zanussi. I went through the stuck record routine of repeating "no thank you" while the assistant tries to sell me the extortionate finance deals, extended warranties & various aftercare services. After that we learn that delivery is £22 & installation is £55. So what do we get for that £55?

"Well you have to have it installed by what's classed as a competent person otherwise the warranty is not valid. Our engineer will disconnect (unplug) the old cooker, install (plug in) the new cooker & test that the new cooker is working properly (turn it on & off again)."

"Right..."

"Before we go ahead though can you confirm that you have an oven terminal point" She shows us a picture of the standard box which has the cooker switch & a plug socket which we do have & another blank featureless square panel with wires leading in & out that we don't have.

"Oh, if you don't have one of these terminal points we won't be able to install it."

"Why can't it be wired up to our existing point?"

"The regulations have changed. Older properties just used to have one of these boxes, all new installations require one of these terminal points by LOORRRRRRRRR!!!!!"

"Can your electrician not install a terminal end point?"

"Oh, our installers (plugger inners) are not electricians."

"I'm sure I could wire it up myself."

"But you won't be classed as a competent person."

I try to think where she has met me before, but I draw a blank.

As the property is rented we are limited in what we can do so we return home to make a few phonecalls which eventually ends up with an electrician telling us to just get the cooker delivered for Monday & he'll take care of it. With this confirmation Mum asks to be taken back to Store 2 or 7 to buy the cooker but I go online, find the same cooker at Store 7's website for the same price but with free delivery. The online store has a voucher code field so I do a quick search & find a discount code to get 8% off freestanding cookers this week, thank you very much.

So the takeaway lesson of the day is: If you are not using the internet for your shopping you are being shafted.

Today was my last day of work at Eastbourne Jobcentre Plus.

The day started with a very nice breakfast put on by our manager to say thank you to the whole FJR team for our efforts over the performance year. It was really nice to see the whole section smiling & having a good laugh together for once as opposed to the usual all-hands-to-the-pump craziness. That & there was food involved.

At this breakfast I was embarrassed by the huge shower of goodies that was bestowed on me. Big thanks to all, plus extra thanks to Les, Julie, Lynne & Margaret who each went that bit further & gave me extra goodies themselves which was really touching. The inside of the main card was completely covered with loads of fantastic messages of thanks & support for me. I never expected such a fanfare, all of which I am totally undeserving.

I started leaving the building at 14:00, but it was past 15:00 by the time I'd finished all the farewells. I have never been instructed to increase my use of Facebook so much in my life.

I feel so guilty for leaving.

Why does how we write sound so different to how we speak?

Increasing the average number of syllables per word of your writing does not make you sound more intelligent. It makes you look like a moron. Especially when most of the words are misspelled.

Please, could everyone bear in mind that communication is only successful if you are understood by your audience.

Things I learnt today:

http://lite.facebook.com/ is bearable.

Internet Explorer does not consider attributes to be nodes.

Loads of tweaks to Chrome & Firefox that make them potential Opera replacements.

A few tweaks to Opera 10.50 which mean I probably won't be switching.

All of my websites work very well in Lynx.

This entry was posted using Lynx.