h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When you telephone some company or corporation (telephone and computer companies and government offices are the worst) and you have to go through 7 or 8 menu selections only to get an automated message saying, "sorry, all our operators are busy. Please try later" or "please telephone this number - there will be a charge of 60p per minute".

Yeah... and how about having your name taken away.

I am NOT a number!

When you order something, they give you an expected despatch date, and then they tell you it's been dispatched three days later, leaving you another three days to wait for it to be delivered.

That just happened to my lovely new 17" monitor. Oh well, maybe it'll take less than three days to come.

And foot and mouth will cease to exist at midnight...

Continuing from last notion on companies and dilivering; Internet companies who advertise "availibility 24 hours"; meaning they can dispatch it in 24 hours? So why does ordering goods almost entirely, in my experiance, involve waiting weeks to get the damm stuff; probably the fact is they only advitise it as having short ordering/dilivery times to get you to buy it, when they know full well they have none in stock. This is especially the case with CD's I have ordered from a certain company, who, is, named after a famous rainforest region of the world.

So sue them. If they claim that they'll dispatch in 24 hours, and they don't leave themselves any loopholes to wriggle through (which is unlikely) and then they don't dispatch in 24 hours, they're breaching contract. I think...

I've actually had nothing but good experiences with said company. Mind you, I've never bought a CD from them - I use them to get Computer Science textbooks.

Me, too. Have use the UK and German branches and have always been notified - several times if necessary - and usually the deliveries come before the given date.

I'm partially withdrawing my previous complaint re the 17" monitor because it came this morning and it's gorgeous

Lloyd Grossman - but particularily his advert for his new tomato mush cooking sauces.

In Europe most roads have bicycle paths running alongside them. What really annoys me is cyclists who despite the availability of a cycle path, still insist on riding on the road, which has been narrowed to allow more room for the cycle path.

And cyclists who ride at night without lights. The battery-driven bicycle lamp is practically unheard of here in Germany, so people always use the excuse that

- it's so hard to pedal when the dynamo is on
- they don't know how to work the dynamo
- the bulb is broken

The useless thing about dynamo-powered lights is that they go off when the bike is standing still. Whoever invented those things?

Is Ireland not in Europe then?

In Ireland almost no roads have cycle lanes.
Those that do have to share the cycle lane with the bus lane.
Most roads are barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass in opposing directions safely.
The edges of the road (where the 'cycle lane' is) are often very badly pot-holed.
The manhole and drain covers are not flush to the road surface.
Cars park with two wheels on the pavement and two on the road forcing cyclists into near suicidal detours into the middle of the road to get round them.
Lorries pull in when they aren't completely past a cyclist, which forces the cyclist off the road.
People open doors on parked cars without taking any notice of cyclists going around them.
Drives often think that they don't have to wait for a cyclist before they pull out, join a roundabout etc.

*can you tell I started cycling to work recently? *

I think we did this on another thread didn't we? I gave up cycling on busy city roads because I value my life.
However, it still drives me up the wall when I see cars driving inconsiderately towards cyclists.

Cyclists who don't use the cycle lane when one is available. These are the sort of people who deserve to be run over.

I shall have to wait until mine arrives before I really go to town on this, but I'm told that in the UK Census form that's going to be distributed this year, there is no box for you to tick if you're English. Scots, Welsh, Irish, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese, yes, but not English.

As I say, I haven't received mine yet, so I might be that I'm being duped by those who like to stir up racial trouble.

People who smoke whilst driving.

People who flick their fag buts out of the car window whilst driving.

People who flick their fag buts out of the car window using unheard of accuracy and skill so as to be able to hit me square in the face whilst I am riding my bicycle, which they have just overtaken too closely and at speed.

Having to get bent wheel rims straightend due to the above.

I'm not sure who invented the bicycle Dynamo ...but it sounds kinda Spanish or Italian doesn't it. Maybe Portugie. Or some flash Yank git like Captain Dynamo and that wooden bee his Real name...
Speaking of names... anybody seen what happened to mine...

People who never say thank you annoy me enormously.

When I'm driving, cyclists. When I'm cycling, car drivers. All the time, pedestrians.

People who don't say sorry, and people who don't acknowledge you when you say "sorry"; for something that was probably a bit of both peoples fault. like the git the other day, who walked out of the lift, straight into me; being polite, I appologised; "sorry", I said; no reply, "excuece me" I said,; no reply,; people that arogant deserve the kick in the nuts and sore nose they got from me; hopefully he will be more polite the next time we meet.
Now, I accknowledge that some people may find my actions somewhat over what was reequired in the situeation; I was tired, I was P***ed off already, the lift in question was in the building where I live; the person involved lives in the same building; now, if I had been in a really nasty mood; welkl, he may have got the kind of response I gave to the people I shared a kitchedn with at my first University; some people in my kitchen took some of my food, and used it regularly; I called a meeting asked them to stop; Now the fact that they didn't, and that the next week, a particularly nice sandwich of mine was stolen from the fridge, and then the person who took it happend to get severe salmonella food poisening, and the fact I was working at Uni in the microbiological lab at that point in time may be just a coinsidence.l or maybe not. Needless to say, when the person involved recovered, I never had any more food go missing, an neither did anyone else in the kitchen.

Good heavens, what could have been posted here that the moderators didn't like? I think the cyclists vs drivers question was covered in that very long "Roundabouts" thread. Has that come back yet? Used to be one of my favourites

Wasn't it Spearcarrier's analysis of the perils of cycling in Ireland (or was that posted somewhere else)