Things that annoy you beyond reason...(Vol. 6)
Discussion
yellowjack said:
That moment when all of your shopping has gone through the till, been scanned, packed, and the "loyalty" card presented, and the total bill is £30.83
...and of course the limit for a contactless payment is a whole 83 pence lower, so you have to put the card in the slot and type in that annoying 4-digit code. I mean, that's about 30 seconds of my life I'll never get back. And worst of all it won't matter if the limit for PIN-less payments is put up to £35, £40, £50, or even £100, because there's always going to be that moment where you are mere pennies over the limit, and that will ALWAYS be annoying. Especially if you are only one item over, and that was a small non-essential item.
On a related note, why the hell do we need to put the card in the slot? What info does it get from that that it can't get from the contactless data? In the Netherlands if you're over the contactless limit (€25 I think) you just type in your PIN after tapping the contactless pad....and of course the limit for a contactless payment is a whole 83 pence lower, so you have to put the card in the slot and type in that annoying 4-digit code. I mean, that's about 30 seconds of my life I'll never get back. And worst of all it won't matter if the limit for PIN-less payments is put up to £35, £40, £50, or even £100, because there's always going to be that moment where you are mere pennies over the limit, and that will ALWAYS be annoying. Especially if you are only one item over, and that was a small non-essential item.
Then there's the places like Tesco who still have the £30 limit for authenticated/encrypted contactless like Garmin Pay.
The sheer volume of coverage given over to Kobe Bryant on the BBC news this morning.
I get it. He was famous. He was good at his sport. He won gold medals at Olympic Games. I get it, too, that he died young, and that his daughter tragically died far too young. but at the end of today he will still be "that American bloke whose name you were familiar with but couldn't quite recall why".
He may have been "a legend" in the USA, especially in Los Angeles, but not here. If we didn't have wall-to-wall coverage of his exploits and achievements when he was alive, why the rush to cover him in death? I just don't get it. We have the continuing saga of our EU exit, HS2 still pouring billions of pounds into a hole in the ground somewhere, the Corona Virus outbreak that may yet bring about the end of the world as we know it, and all sorts of other important news stories.
Stop fawning over dead celebrities, and the families of victims of various tragic accidents, ffs. This s
t happens when you get wealthy and start routinely travelling by helicopter. It's the same with the continuing coverage of the compo sad face "family of tragic motorcyclist Harry Dunn". I get it. He was young, and not doing anything wrong as far as we know. He shouldn't have died as a result of an error made by a US citizen. But he did, and it was accidental. She didn't, after all, set out to mow down an innocent motorcyclist. She could just as easily have rounded that bend on the wrong side of the road and been decapitated under an Eddy Stobart lorry. His family should be retired from news coverage now, because the US Government have declined to extradite her and it's now a non-story. And all the while, the same BBC failed to cover the story of the motorcyclist who suffered life-changing injuries when he was hit by a Subaru being badly driven by an utter plank.
I'm sorry for the long-winded rant, but "News", especially at a national level, should be covering big, important stories about things that do, or are likely to, affect the majority of us. And I'm sorry, but even if every helicopter in the sky at a given moment suddenly fell from said sky raining fiery death, it wouldn't affect the vast majority of UK citizens. And I doubt very much there's going to be a pandemic of US drivers killing UK citizens on our roads any time soon either. And don't kid yourself that there are people in the UK interested in the death of Kobe Bryant who actually need BBC reporters to bring them Shaquille O'Neal's words of tribute to his former Lakers team mate. Because anyone with an interest in him and his words of wisdom has likely already read them first-hand because they follow him on Twitter.
TL;DR? "Dear BBC. Please, in future, confine obituary-type pieces for sport stars to the sport element of your news bulletin, and keep the headline news lead story for actual important national and international events. Thanks."
I get it. He was famous. He was good at his sport. He won gold medals at Olympic Games. I get it, too, that he died young, and that his daughter tragically died far too young. but at the end of today he will still be "that American bloke whose name you were familiar with but couldn't quite recall why".
He may have been "a legend" in the USA, especially in Los Angeles, but not here. If we didn't have wall-to-wall coverage of his exploits and achievements when he was alive, why the rush to cover him in death? I just don't get it. We have the continuing saga of our EU exit, HS2 still pouring billions of pounds into a hole in the ground somewhere, the Corona Virus outbreak that may yet bring about the end of the world as we know it, and all sorts of other important news stories.
Stop fawning over dead celebrities, and the families of victims of various tragic accidents, ffs. This s
t happens when you get wealthy and start routinely travelling by helicopter. It's the same with the continuing coverage of the compo sad face "family of tragic motorcyclist Harry Dunn". I get it. He was young, and not doing anything wrong as far as we know. He shouldn't have died as a result of an error made by a US citizen. But he did, and it was accidental. She didn't, after all, set out to mow down an innocent motorcyclist. She could just as easily have rounded that bend on the wrong side of the road and been decapitated under an Eddy Stobart lorry. His family should be retired from news coverage now, because the US Government have declined to extradite her and it's now a non-story. And all the while, the same BBC failed to cover the story of the motorcyclist who suffered life-changing injuries when he was hit by a Subaru being badly driven by an utter plank.I'm sorry for the long-winded rant, but "News", especially at a national level, should be covering big, important stories about things that do, or are likely to, affect the majority of us. And I'm sorry, but even if every helicopter in the sky at a given moment suddenly fell from said sky raining fiery death, it wouldn't affect the vast majority of UK citizens. And I doubt very much there's going to be a pandemic of US drivers killing UK citizens on our roads any time soon either. And don't kid yourself that there are people in the UK interested in the death of Kobe Bryant who actually need BBC reporters to bring them Shaquille O'Neal's words of tribute to his former Lakers team mate. Because anyone with an interest in him and his words of wisdom has likely already read them first-hand because they follow him on Twitter.
TL;DR? "Dear BBC. Please, in future, confine obituary-type pieces for sport stars to the sport element of your news bulletin, and keep the headline news lead story for actual important national and international events. Thanks."
yellowjack said:
The sheer volume of coverage given over to Kobe Bryant on the BBC news this morning.
I get it. He was famous. He was good at his sport. He won gold medals at Olympic Games. I get it, too, that he died young, and that his daughter tragically died far too young. but at the end of today he will still be "that American bloke whose name you were familiar with but couldn't quite recall why".
Yesterday I had to watch 'Council News' as the BBC put their early evening bulletin in the middle of the afternoon. It was the lead item of news and treated like a national disaster!I get it. He was famous. He was good at his sport. He won gold medals at Olympic Games. I get it, too, that he died young, and that his daughter tragically died far too young. but at the end of today he will still be "that American bloke whose name you were familiar with but couldn't quite recall why".
I'd never heard of him... and I'm pretty sure that would go for the majority of British people (I'm not just being 'trendily unaware', as some PHers purport).
Grahamdub said:
yellowjack said:
The sheer volume of coverage given over to Kobe Bryant on the BBC news this morning.
Stuff snipped
It annoyed me that it came before Holocaust Memorial Day on the news.Stuff snipped
And if Kobe Bryant's death in a helicopter crash was "tragic", I think we need to be inventing new words to describe the magnitude of the tragedy that was the fate of millions of people who'd done nothing more wrong than to be born to parents practising one particular religion. Get a grip, BBC, and introduce a sense of proportion into your editorial decisions...
Johnspex said:
Frank7 said:
SCEtoAUX said:
The total inability that women have to get their purse out of their handbags before being asked to pay at a supermarket checkout.
Oh, you want money? Sorry I hadn't realised...
Likewise women exiting taxis, in dense traffic they’d shout, “This will do, stop here driver!”Oh, you want money? Sorry I hadn't realised...
Then they’d get out, struggle with the clasp or zip of their bag, then seek out a purse, then scrabble around with pound coins, and ten and twenty pence pieces.
All the while, behind me, drivers were muttering about p*xy Black Cab drivers.
yellowjack said:
I stick to the original Roman meaning of "to decimate", and by my calculations what the Nazis did to their Jewish citizens was of a far greater magnitude than "decimation". Decimation is the removal of ten percent as a punishment and a warning to others.
You may be familiar with the correct usage of the word but over the years it has rather inverted to the point that the popular (mis)understanding of the word is "to reduce to 10%" rather than "to reduce by 10%"My particular annoyance is people who scoff "It's only a theory" when referring to scientific theories, because they don't understand the difference between the colloquial understanding of the word "a guess" with the scientific meaning "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment"
Perhaps they would like to go jump out of a window and scoff that the theory of gravity is "only a theory" and see how they get on.
V8mate said:
Yesterday I had to watch 'Council News' as the BBC put their early evening bulletin in the middle of the afternoon. It was the lead item of news and treated like a national disaster!
I'd never heard of him... and I'm pretty sure that would go for the majority of British people (I'm not just being 'trendily unaware', as some PHers purport).
Yes. My wife looked puzzled at the mention of his name on the ten o'clock bulletin. She asked me if I'd heard of him. I answered honestly that I was vaguely aware of his name, and would have guessed at "sports start of some kind", but I honestly couldn't have told you which sport out of American Football, Basketball, or Athletics.I'd never heard of him... and I'm pretty sure that would go for the majority of British people (I'm not just being 'trendily unaware', as some PHers purport).
And no, it should never have been a lead item on a UK news channel. Some commentator this morning telling us that "people are crying in the streets". Well indeed. And so they might. I imagine some people were, and that some people were attending vigils and lighting candles too. But I'll hazard a guess that it wasn't even most people in LA, let alone the USA or the world. Tragic? Yes, for him, his daughter, their family, friends, and anyone he had dealings with in his charity and sporting roles. Sympathy? Absolutely, in as much as I can feel sympathetic to people I've never met, nor am ever likely to meet. But on a UK national, and even an international scale it is of no real consequence to the wider population that he died when his helicopter crashed.
yellowjack said:
Yes. My wife looked puzzled at the mention of his name on the ten o'clock bulletin. She asked me if I'd heard of him. I answered honestly that I was vaguely aware of his name, and would have guessed at "sports start of some kind", but I honestly couldn't have told you which sport out of American Football, Basketball, or Athletics.
And no, it should never have been a lead item on a UK news channel. Some commentator this morning telling us that "people are crying in the streets". Well indeed. And so they might. I imagine some people were, and that some people were attending vigils and lighting candles too. But I'll hazard a guess that it wasn't even most people in LA, let alone the USA or the world. Tragic? Yes, for him, his daughter, their family, friends, and anyone he had dealings with in his charity and sporting roles. Sympathy? Absolutely, in as much as I can feel sympathetic to people I've never met, nor am ever likely to meet. But on a UK national, and even an international scale it is of no real consequence to the wider population that he died when his helicopter crashed.
You make some very fair and cogent points. I agree. And no, it should never have been a lead item on a UK news channel. Some commentator this morning telling us that "people are crying in the streets". Well indeed. And so they might. I imagine some people were, and that some people were attending vigils and lighting candles too. But I'll hazard a guess that it wasn't even most people in LA, let alone the USA or the world. Tragic? Yes, for him, his daughter, their family, friends, and anyone he had dealings with in his charity and sporting roles. Sympathy? Absolutely, in as much as I can feel sympathetic to people I've never met, nor am ever likely to meet. But on a UK national, and even an international scale it is of no real consequence to the wider population that he died when his helicopter crashed.
Clockwork Cupcake said:
yellowjack said:
Yes. My wife looked puzzled at the mention of his name on the ten o'clock bulletin. She asked me if I'd heard of him. I answered honestly that I was vaguely aware of his name, and would have guessed at "sports start of some kind", but I honestly couldn't have told you which sport out of American Football, Basketball, or Athletics.
And no, it should never have been a lead item on a UK news channel. Some commentator this morning telling us that "people are crying in the streets". Well indeed. And so they might. I imagine some people were, and that some people were attending vigils and lighting candles too. But I'll hazard a guess that it wasn't even most people in LA, let alone the USA or the world. Tragic? Yes, for him, his daughter, their family, friends, and anyone he had dealings with in his charity and sporting roles. Sympathy? Absolutely, in as much as I can feel sympathetic to people I've never met, nor am ever likely to meet. But on a UK national, and even an international scale it is of no real consequence to the wider population that he died when his helicopter crashed.
You make some very fair and cogent points. I agree. And no, it should never have been a lead item on a UK news channel. Some commentator this morning telling us that "people are crying in the streets". Well indeed. And so they might. I imagine some people were, and that some people were attending vigils and lighting candles too. But I'll hazard a guess that it wasn't even most people in LA, let alone the USA or the world. Tragic? Yes, for him, his daughter, their family, friends, and anyone he had dealings with in his charity and sporting roles. Sympathy? Absolutely, in as much as I can feel sympathetic to people I've never met, nor am ever likely to meet. But on a UK national, and even an international scale it is of no real consequence to the wider population that he died when his helicopter crashed.
I wouldn’t have looked out of the window if the NBA Finals had been played in my back garden, but I’m mildly surprised at the amount of posters queuing up to say that they’d never heard of him, as if it’s an achievement.
Frank7 said:
I knew that Kobe Bryant played basketball for the L.A. Lakers, but only because my brain is an avid collector of trivial things printed in papers/magazines, and seen on TV.
I wouldn’t have looked out of the window if the NBA Finals had been played in my back garden, but I’m mildly surprised at the amount of posters queuing up to say that they’d never heard of him, as if it’s an achievement.
This.I wouldn’t have looked out of the window if the NBA Finals had been played in my back garden, but I’m mildly surprised at the amount of posters queuing up to say that they’d never heard of him, as if it’s an achievement.
Admittedly my first thought was "maybe the Warriors have a chance of making the playoffs now" and realising that I'm a bit of a
for thinking that... But others in this thread make me seem like a saint. I have an on again, off again interest in American basketball. It's a fast paced, interesting sport, especially compared to the snore fests that are soccer and cricket... However were a famous footballist or Cricketist were to suddenly pass, I'd be the first to realise that my ignorance of these people is not something to celebrate.
captain_cynic said:
. However were a famous footballist or Cricketist were to suddenly pass, I'd be the first to realise that my ignorance of these people is not something to celebrate.
Odd thing to say. I saw the news and heard the name last night, but it rang no bells. This sad death of someone involved in a minority sport in this country does seem to have been very widely reported. I wonder why.Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff