Tesco: Taking away without the owner’s permission.

In the UK, if some yob drives away with your car, you cannot call it ‘stealing’. As the yob does not ‘intend to permanently deprive you of your property’, it is not ‘theft’, it is ‘taking away without the owner’s permission’.

If you buy petrol from a Tesco petrol station, and Tesco’s credit/debit card machine screws up and does not complete the transaction, then you may be unpleasantly surprised to discover that the money is ‘locked’ up in your card account, awaiting Tesco’s pleasure, and you can no longer access that cash. If you try to use the card again, and you now have insufficient funds (you had ‘sufficient’ before Tesco’s card machine blew them away into cash card purgatory), you then have to find some other way to pay for the petrol.
Embarassment, awkwardness, holding up a queue, etc. etc. And don’t think of leaving – you would then be accused of ‘stealing’ the petrol that you would have paid for if Tesco had not got it all wrong!

Tesco’s attitude? After all the stupid excuses …
‘You (YOU!) must have taken your card out too quick.’
‘It’s the computer’s fault.’
You probably have heard them all before.

You go to Tesco and complain.
It’s not their fault. They’ve done nothing wrong. It’s your card. You’ll get the money back in 8 ( or 15, or whenever ) days. They have not charged you anything so they have nothing to return to you.

It is not stealing, but it is ‘taking away without the owner’s permission’.
And in the car world, that is a criminal offence.

In Tesco, it’s just tough luck! They are big and you are small.

I cannot, therefore call Tesco thieves.

I can call them a store that people should avoid like the plague.
I can call them a store that seems not to care for the customer.
And I can tell this story to the world.

Getting Ready

Next month, we’ll be off on a trip …
… to Nevada. The one in the USA, for anyone who is not sure.
And every week, I’ll be posting a letter. All about who, what and whatever I fancy.

I know that I have just said ‘next month’, but a trip like this takes far more time and effort than just being on holiday for a fortnight. In fact, it has taken far more hard work (and money!) than it might seem to need. So I might as well start writing the letters now. Who knows? Someone might find them interesting. Even useful, perhaps …

Organising a holiday to the USA is somewhat like invading the Americas. It takes planning – lots of it – and time. Probably more time than actually being on holiday. Flights, accommodation, car rental, insurance. The list goes on and on. Then there is the timing …
If we go to this place on the such and such, then we have to leave on the blah-blah, which means that we have to stay in motels for two days because we can’t move in to our next place until lah-di-dah. Look up motels. Check availability. No joy. Look elsewhere. No better. So it is back to the beginning to see what alternatives are available. We can do the same places, but in reverse order, so that means flying to San Francisco instead of Los Angeles. Which changes the dates …

Believe me. It ain’t easy.

Eventually, we had our dates. A week in Las Vegas and a week in Lake Tahoe.
“Ooooh! Lucky you!” That is what many people have said. Not luck. Hard work. Hard graft. Lots of determination. Ask anyone that knows me. I have the reputation of being the unluckiest man around. So not luck, then. I have to plan very well indeed! If I relied on luck, I would be ‘lucky’ to make it past our garden gate before ‘luck’ struck. I plan for ALL contingencies.

The accommodation is set. The flights are booked. I’m insured. (Bizzarely, I’ve never claimed on it.) The car is booked for the duration. We know where we are going and how we are travelling. I’ve read up on baggage limits, picked our seats on the plane, done all the paperwork – you need an ESTA to go west ah! I’ve missed flights before – twice! – but I always get to where I am going. It’s a personal thing.

We have no fear of disaster at our destination. They happen. Floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes. They might devastate the place we are visiting, but we are merely observers and the disaster never touches us. Except in the heart. We will never forget New Orleans.
I even run a Disaster Sweepstake before we go. The prize goes to the person who guesses what goes horribly wrong on our holiday. Everything from Las Vegas Showgirl Incident to Sandstorm is in this year’s disaster list. Feel free to join. Nearest to the mark will win a prize of our choice. Entry is free!

Four weeks and counting …
More next week.

Mesklin

The French authorities want to be sure they’re not sending a pension to someone who is no longer ‘alive and well on planet earth’. Hence the form that must be filled in by the authorites here, every six months.
There is something reassuring and invigorating about having the lass at the local council office attest that I am still: ‘alive, having appeared before us this day.’
This week there’s a new spring to my step!

It is the right of the previous generation to claim that the world is going to hell in a hand-cart. And the current generation, to claim that we are heading for the New Jerusalem.

Recently, I had the dubious pleasure of watching an important project stumble and fall, due to poor planning, dubious execution and an outright denial of any kind of critical examination of the ‘facts’.

Pointing out the obvious faults results in accusations of ‘negativity’.
The unworkable was surely possible by the expression of a winning smile.
Further argument was deemed ‘un-professional’.
Staring failure in the face was described as a ‘learning experience’ though nothing was learned at all.
The actuality was a shambles, but the whole sorry mess was deified by the belief that ‘the concept was good’, although it was reluctantly admitted that ‘some of the design decisions were unfortunate’.
None were guilty because none felt the fault was theirs, and pointing fingers might end up pointing at them.

If this is the New Jerusalem, then it might be well to say the words that passed the lips of many a Jew for over a thousand years …

Next year, in Jerusalem …

If you cannot see the wrong, and you cannot feel the right, then the New Jerusalem will be a thousand years away.
Or further.

One of the problems, that occur when you run a website, is judging what people think.
Responding to feedback. Being receptive to new ideas.

It is like being in mid-atlantic, in a rowing boat. Cut off from all the media. No newspapers, radio or television. Trying to figure out the state of the world by observing the colour of the waves or the smell of the wind.

It is nice knowing (rather than guessing) what is happening out there.

So if you stop by and read, do leave a note.

Being stuck out here in mid-atlantic is no fun.
(Though I’m betting that this post will get 10 times more replies from spam animals than readers. Go on! Prove me wrong.)

Mesklin

Writing is the main point of tachras, and it would appear that writing about restaurants and food is not only a literary high-point, but financially rewarding as well …

…so here goes. If Michelin Tyres can do it, then so can KidneyStone Tyres.

The KidneyStone Restaurant Guide.

We’d been there before, several years ago, and knew that it was fairly expensive. But we had tried the local ham – and it was delicious! So, with the rain pelting down, and lunchtime upon us, we thought ‘Yes! Let’s have a nice meal.’

A little table in the corner. A tatty wooden table, and rickety chairs. I was brought up in a place where good food and hygiene were not necessarily companions, and survived that. So no problem there. We were given the menus (it’s a top place when everybody gets their own menu!), and the wine list.

The wine list went first. A glass of white or red for a fiver? Not really. A bottle of the local wine for thirty quid? No chance.
‘Two glasses of Coke, please.’
It came with ice, and that stupid slice of lemon. Why lemon?
The waitress apologised for the fact that the slice of lemon was holding the ice down at the bottom of the glass. I smiled and displayed urbane indifference. I’d had Coke with ice before. The Real Thing, trademark and all. With ice. Mr Cool!

We were hungry, and knowing that the food would not arrive immediately, we both agreed on the soup of the day. Leek and potato. It would keep us going until the main course arrived.
‘Two soups of the day, please.’ We were not foolish enough to say ‘soup du jour’! We were here to eat. Not to entertain the locals.

Back to the menus. We reviewed our choices, considered the ham again – it was nice the last time! – but decided to try the chicken, in a tomato and pepper sauce, dauphinoise potatoes, and seasonal vegetables.

We sat and waited for the soup.
And waited …
… and waited. For over fifteen minutes.
We read whatever there was on the table.
‘Recommended by Michelin’.
‘Finalist. Restaurant of the Year 2008′
Who started the place. When. Not why, but people do theses things.

We tuned in to the other diners.
‘A fair size place, Tours, in the Loire Valley’
‘You don’t need to know a word of French! Everyone speaks English. They have an English pub. They even have an English newspaper.’
In Scotland, we refer to them as ‘White Settlers’.
‘I love to go in to work. There are all these young people flitting off to New York. It is quite invigorating!’
I have no idea whatsoever as to what this ‘work-lover’ actually did. Although I am certain that the planet would manage just ducky without them.
‘Have you brought the car round?’
‘It’s at the door.’
‘At the front door?’
‘Of course! We don’t do walking!’

‘Oh Lord! We have fallen amongst sinners. The righteous and the idle.’

At last, the soup arrived.
‘Apres Ham, le Deluge.

The soup was a pale and insubstantial. With slices of toasted parsnip floating on top. Served on a square wooden plank, with two triangles of brown bread and two dollops of butter. No taste, no texture. Just gruel for the End of Days.
‘I saw no provender upon a pale froth!’
(I had to work hard to squeeze in that pun!)
I had to work hard to force down the soup. I buy better stuff in tins from Chez Heinz!
A taste of things to come.

The Chicken.
Lying dead on the plate after a Leylandii explosion. Bits of conifer sticking out of the flesh and a bone protuding from one end. Do chickens come like that, naturally?
The tomato and pepper sauce was red. Probably the only foreseeable part of the dish. The seasonal vegetables consisted of a slice of squash (I’m guessing here!), roast vegetables (impossible to guess which type – all charcoal looks much the same), roast parsnips (must be a glut of them locally), sliced carrots (recognisable but rubbery) and the usual oily broccoli, giant economy size.

The chicken tasted of soap, but I ate it. And the carrots. I passed the dauphinoise potatoes to my companion. She couldn’t eat the chicken at all. So the dauphinoise potatoes kept her alive till later. She did not know what dauphinoise potatoes were. Now she thinks that they are Kraft Cheese Slices sandwiched between two slices of potato.
Close enough.

When asked if we had enjoyed the meal, I said that ‘It had not been to my taste.’
The waitress was strangely silent. We paid the bill. Even left a tip.
After all, anyone who charges the ‘creme de middle classe’ such high prices for such dreadful food, and manages to convince them that what the are served is quality worth the price, must surely rank as a ’Working Class Hero’.

On the way home, we made a detour through the town where we had stayed nearly 20 years before. The local Chinese Takeaway used to be excellent. 10 minutes waiting for a Beef Curry and a Chicken and Pineapple, both with boiled rice, was time well spent.
It took another hour to reach home, and we had to re-heat in the microwave.
But it was the culinary highlight of the day.

Good food and good company.
And no need to leave a tip.

Except this.
Mints are handy when trying to remove the taste of a dreadful meal from your mouth.
And tyre manufacturers are not necessarily the best guide to food.
Would you let Heinz & Co. fit your car with tyres?

Well, it took a bit of effort, but the book collection is on site.

Dave’s Book Collection

Total is in excess of 1800 books (more will undoubtedly appear). My original estimate was higher, but I was counting by the inch and a lot of the books are thicker than the older ones. A lot are over 1,000 pages.

The most popular author? Harry Harrison. If you haven’t read ‘The Stainless Steel Rat’, then your education is somewhat lacking!

Well, it’s been a helluva week!

Insulted by the Managing (barely) Director. There will come a time …

Informed by the local council that the road I drive to work (possibly the only really hilly road in the entire county) would not be gritted because of ‘Salt Rationning’. Why wasn’t it gritted when you had salt? I could drive on it. Obviously the gritting lorries found it too difficult!

Discovered (yet again) that wires break when you flex them. Like every time you close the box. Requiring the box to be re-opened, breaking more wires. Then, of course, you have to close the box.

And the heartwarming news that, to their own knowledge, no-one has frozen to death waiting (till the worst of the winter weather has passed) waiting for the Department of Work & Pensions to pay people their rightly-entitled Winter Fuel allowance. Two months late. And you have to discover that you are entitled, because they do not feel the need to inform you.

Still ticking …