Saw a battery operated hand held fan with rows of LEDs at the check-out
today. I wondered who thought that a Chinese factory should bother making
such a daft thing and then ship it half way around the world so that we end
up putting it in our land-fill sites.

We have people getting up-tight about carbon footprints and renewable
sources - yet we appear to be encouraging ridiculous production that uses up
resources without adding to the value of life of the person buying it. We
should be putting resources (including transportation) into useful things -
not tat.



John

"John" wrote

We have people getting up-tight about carbon footprints and renewable
sources -

If any of said people were serious about the issue, we wouldn't have Tescos
etc using strong arm methods to put local shops out of business.
Local shops provide excellent service for single/retire people and families
doing in-between shops. Taking travelling cost into account, they are not
that much more expensive (if used with caution).

Tescos would have us believe that a local shop is defined as one that is
reachable by women in 4x4s in under half an hour!

Similarly OT rant over

Phil

TheScullster wrote:
"John" wrote

We have people getting up-tight about carbon footprints and renewable
sources -

If any of said people were serious about the issue, we wouldn't have
Tescos etc using strong arm methods to put local shops out of
business.

People do not *have* to shop in Tesco.

Si

"TheScullster" wrote in message
news

"John" wrote

We have people getting up-tight about carbon footprints and renewable
sources -

If any of said people were serious about the issue, we wouldn't have
Tescos etc using strong arm methods to put local shops out of business.
Local shops provide excellent service for single/retire people and
families doing in-between shops. Taking travelling cost into account,
they are not that much more expensive (if used with caution).

Tescos would have us believe that a local shop is defined as one that is
reachable by women in 4x4s in under half an hour!

Similarly OT rant over

Phil


....and once the local shops have disappeared Tesco will start increasing
their prices. This is certainly what happened with DIY shops when B&Q, Focus
and others muscled the local shop out of business. (although I still have an
excellent one near me)

On Mon, 14 May 2007 17:24:42 +0100 TheScullster wrote :
If any of said people were serious about the issue, we wouldn't have
Tescos etc using strong arm methods to put local shops out of business.

Local people put local shops out of business when they stop using them.

Local shops provide excellent service for single/retire people and
families doing in-between shops. Taking travelling cost into account,
they are not that much more expensive (if used with caution).

On the sorts of things I buy the local shop is 20-30% more expensive than
Tesco.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote:

People do not *have* to shop in Tesco.

And for those that want to, they will deliver. One van, 20 customers is
way better than one car per customer.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In article ,
TheScullster wrote:
If any of said people were serious about the issue, we wouldn't have
Tescos etc using strong arm methods to put local shops out of business.
Local shops provide excellent service for single/retire people and
families doing in-between shops. Taking travelling cost into account,
they are not that much more expensive (if used with caution).

Strangely it wasn't the large supermarkets that killed off my local
grocer type shops but the Tesco Metro. It's no larger than some of the
previous competition, but provides exactly what I, as a single person,
want. Ignoring price too. Previously, the local shops seemed only to sell
what they wanted to sell rather than what I actually wanted to buy.

What do I want from this sort of shop? A selection of decent fresh
produce. Possibly ready made main courses of good quality if I'm in a
hurry. And the fact they have a car park is a big plus.

--
*7up is good for you, signed snow white*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Tony Bryer wrote:
On Mon, 14 May 2007 17:24:42 +0100 TheScullster wrote :
If any of said people were serious about the issue, we wouldn't have
Tescos etc using strong arm methods to put local shops out of business.

Local people put local shops out of business when they stop using them.

Out of the several that used to be round here, few provided a pleasant
shopping experience - mainly through surly staff on the till. The local
small Tesco types seem to manage a smile. I'd have thought that more
difficult for an employee than owner.

Local shops provide excellent service for single/retire people and
families doing in-between shops. Taking travelling cost into account,
they are not that much more expensive (if used with caution).

On the sorts of things I buy the local shop is 20-30% more expensive
than Tesco.

My main complaint was of poor selection and quality. In the 'convenience'
stores. Sure if you had the time to traipse round several specialist shops
- baker, greengrocer, butcher, etc you could get decent quality. But
generally I can't be bothered.

--
*Remember not to forget that which you do not need to know.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Owain wrote:

I think about half
the people in my computing class do that. They're over 80 and a bit
bewildered, but getting there slowly and very enthusiastic.

Is this a class you attend yourself or teach?

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Owain wrote:
TheScullster wrote:
Local shops provide excellent service for single/retire people

No they don't.

They take far too long to get round for single people and don't open
long enough hours (usually).

For oldies, Tesco means they can get everything they need under one
roof without having to go out in the cold and wet, they can have a
snack in the cafe and there are nice clean loos and a freephone for
the taxi home. Or there's online ordering and home delivery - I think
about half the people in my computing class do that. They're over 80
and a bit bewildered, but getting there slowly and very enthusiastic.

Owain

Zactly. Our 24 hour Tescos are like Dawn of the Dead at 6am. The coffin
dodgers love 'em!

Si

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Strangely it wasn't the large supermarkets that killed off my local
grocer type shops but the Tesco Metro. It's no larger than some of the
previous competition, but provides exactly what I, as a single person,
want. Ignoring price too. Previously, the local shops seemed only to
sell what they wanted to sell rather than what I actually wanted to
buy.

What do I want from this sort of shop? A selection of decent fresh
produce. Possibly ready made main courses of good quality if I'm in a
hurry. And the fact they have a car park is a big plus.

Supermarkets just do things right. Owners of all small shops had the
opportunity to do that too, but only a few of them did. Jack Cohen, for one,
who started with a market stall.

Si

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote:

People do not *have* to shop in Tesco.

And for those that want to, they will deliver. One van, 20 customers is
way better than one car per customer.

Unless, like me, going to Tesco adds about 200 yards to a journey I make
every day anyway.

Colin Bignell

"John" wrote in message
...
Saw a battery operated hand held fan with rows of LEDs at the check-out
today. I wondered who thought that a Chinese factory should bother making
such a daft thing and then ship it half way around the world so that we
end up putting it in our land-fill sites.

If it didn't sell, they wouldn't import them and shipping a container
halfway around the world takes less fuel than driving it from one end of the
country to the other.

We have people getting up-tight about carbon footprints and renewable
sources - yet we appear to be encouraging ridiculous production that uses
up resources without adding to the value of life of the person buying it.

The people who buy them must disagree with that, or they wouldn't buy them.

Colin Bignell

Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Strangely it wasn't the large supermarkets that killed off my local
grocer type shops but the Tesco Metro. It's no larger than some of
the previous competition, but provides exactly what I, as a single
person, want. Ignoring price too. Previously, the local shops seemed
only to sell what they wanted to sell rather than what I actually
wanted to buy.

What do I want from this sort of shop? A selection of decent fresh
produce. Possibly ready made main courses of good quality if I'm in a
hurry. And the fact they have a car park is a big plus.

Supermarkets just do things right. Owners of all small shops had the
opportunity to do that too, but only a few of them did. Jack Cohen,
for one, who started with a market stall.

At last the voice of reason! Why are Tesco et al so successful? They give
the punters what they want.

We had a 'corner shop'. Closed on Wednesday arvo, hugely expensive, very
basic stock - mostly past its sell by date, surly staff, smelled like a
Turkish Brothel (alledgedly). It closed a few years ago.

Since January we have a Tesco Metro 300 yards away - open 6am till midnight,
fresh produce, good selection, ample parking, cheap petrol, wide variety,
nice staff, good prices.

Simple innit?

--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

Owain wrote:

Is this a class you attend yourself or teach?

Sauce! I'm much more bewildered than they are.

Thought that might be the case, but the way you worded it... ;-)

It's a class I voluntarily "buddy". I got one of them inserting clipart
into headers and footers in Word today.

I spent 45mins one trying to get an en-dash into header in word 97
once... it crashed every time!


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

The Medway Handyman wrote:

At last the voice of reason! Why are Tesco et al so successful? They give
the punters what they want.


Yus. I fail to see why, when people demonstrate against a new supermarket,
they don't just ignore it and continue to use their existing shops. The
reason appears to be that *most* people *do* want a supermarket local to
them, but perhaps are currently forced to use ****e local shops where they
wait an hour to be served whilst knitting patterns are discussed at length
by the mad tivvies behind the counter.

If a community was entirely happy with their shopping arrangements prior to
said supermarket opening surely it would be forced to close soon enough?

Even Dave "I fookin' 'ate Tesco, me!" Fawthrop uses Tesco when he "has to"!

Si

On Tue, 15 May 2007 02:51:12 +0100 John Rumm wrote :
I spent 45mins one trying to get an en-dash into header in word 97
once... it crashed every time!

I use Lotus WordPro for virtually all my wordprocessing but switched one
of our software manuals over to Word 2003 as I felt that I ought to
acquire some competence at using it, and using it on a real document was
the way to do this. I really cannot believe how poor it is in many
respects compared with WordPro; this is not just unfamiliarity. Little
gems like this

"When you delete a section break, or move an entire section to another
part of the document, you get what seem to be very strange results. For
instance, deleting a Continuous section break causes the preceding Next
Page section break to convert to a Continuous one, or deleting a section
break causes an important Header to disappear from the document, or causes
the entire document to become landscape..

I agree it's confusing, but it's “by design”."

I write computer software; I do my best to make it usable. But when an MVP
(Microsoft guru) is reduced to saying "I agree it's confusing" I just
shake my head in disbelief. No doubt BillG will tell me that the answer is
to buy Office 2007 - cheap for home users, rip-off price for businesses
who want to be legal.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

On May 14, 5:48 pm, "John" wrote:
"TheScullster" wrote in message

news






"John" wrote

We have people getting up-tight about carbon footprints and renewable
sources -

If any of said people were serious about the issue, we wouldn't have
Tescos etc using strong arm methods to put local shops out of business.
Local shops provide excellent service for single/retire people and
families doing in-between shops. Taking travelling cost into account,
they are not that much more expensive (if used with caution).

Tescos would have us believe that a local shop is defined as one that is
reachable by women in 4x4s in under half an hour!

Similarly OT rant over

Phil

...and once the local shops have disappeared Tesco will start increasing
their prices. This is certainly what happened with DIY shops when B&Q, Focus
and others muscled the local shop out of business. (although I still have an
excellent one near me)-

So then you go shop at Sainsbury or somewhere else. Competition isn't
just against the local shops.

There are still plenty of local "happy shopper" type places around but
they do not even attempt to compete on price with supermarkets.

MBQ

On May 14, 7:39 pm, Owain wrote:
TheScullster wrote:
Local shops provide excellent service for single/retire people

No they don't.

They take far too long to get round for single people and don't open
long enough hours (usually).

For oldies, Tesco means they can get everything they need under one roof
without having to go out in the cold and wet, they can have a snack in
the cafe and there are nice clean loos and a freephone for the taxi
home.

Or a bus stop for the free bus that is very often provided.

MBQ

Tony Bryer wrote:


shake my head in disbelief. No doubt BillG will tell me that the answer is
to buy Office 2007 - cheap for home users, rip-off price for businesses
who want to be legal.

From a "confusing" POV that may in fact not be a bad idea. The latest
version has a radically different UI that is claimed to be better if you
are learning it from scratch. (not so good if you need to un-learn the
old version first.

I often find it surprising just how poor it is. You can tell that a
large proportion of the userbase must just use it to knock out 3 page
memos and letters. Doing complex techie documents on it is march harder
than in word perfect.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote:
Tony Bryer wrote:


shake my head in disbelief. No doubt BillG will tell me that the
answer is to buy Office 2007 - cheap for home users, rip-off price for
businesses who want to be legal.

From a "confusing" POV that may in fact not be a bad idea. The latest
version has a radically different UI that is claimed to be better if you
are learning it from scratch. (not so good if you need to un-learn the
old version first.

I often find it surprising just how poor it is. You can tell that a
large proportion of the userbase must just use it to knock out 3 page
memos and letters. Doing complex techie documents on it is march harder
than in word perfect.


Indeed.

I never use word without managing to turn the air blue.

It has so many invisible hidden formatting gotchas that one is either in
the position of spending hours setting up styles, and adhering rigidly
to them, or not using them at all.

What You See is What you Get, is fine enough, but it would be nice for
once if What You Got was What You Typed, and not what some nerd in
Seattle thought you *ought* to have typed.

On Tue, 15 May 2007 10:48:34 +0100 Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote :
Yus. I fail to see why, when people demonstrate against a new supermarket,
they don't just ignore it and continue to use their existing shops. The
reason appears to be that *most* people *do* want a supermarket local to
them, but perhaps are currently forced to use ****e local shops where they
wait an hour to be served whilst knitting patterns are discussed at length
by the mad tivvies behind the counter.

If a community was entirely happy with their shopping arrangements prior to
said supermarket opening surely it would be forced to close soon enough?

As in many planning stories, "the view of the community" is usually the view
of a vociferous subset. When our local Great Mills, now Wickes was up for PP
the campaign against it was on two fronts: "No one wants it" and "When it
opens it will bring traffic chaos to the area". The evident contradiction
between these two was lost on most people.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Owain wrote:
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote:
For oldies, Tesco means they can get everything they need under one
roof without having to go out in the cold and wet, they can have a
snack in the cafe and there are nice clean loos and a freephone for
the taxi home.
Zactly. Our 24 hour Tescos are like Dawn of the Dead at 6am. The
coffin dodgers love 'em!

Mobility scooter racing in the frozen foods aisle?


More like slow-motion dithering and staring at mince. Old people can stare
at mince for *ages*. I don't know what they think it's going to do.

Si

Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote:
Owain wrote:
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote:
For oldies, Tesco means they can get everything they need under one
roof without having to go out in the cold and wet, they can have a
snack in the cafe and there are nice clean loos and a freephone for
the taxi home.
Zactly. Our 24 hour Tescos are like Dawn of the Dead at 6am. The
coffin dodgers love 'em!
Mobility scooter racing in the frozen foods aisle?


More like slow-motion dithering and staring at mince. Old people can stare
at mince for *ages*. I don't know what they think it's going to do.

Si


They are waiting for it to get near enough its sell by date to be marked
down...

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote:
Owain wrote:
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot wrote:
For oldies, Tesco means they can get everything they need under
one roof without having to go out in the cold and wet, they can
have a snack in the cafe and there are nice clean loos and a
freephone for the taxi home.
Zactly. Our 24 hour Tescos are like Dawn of the Dead at 6am. The
coffin dodgers love 'em!
Mobility scooter racing in the frozen foods aisle?


More like slow-motion dithering and staring at mince. Old people can
stare at mince for *ages*. I don't know what they think it's going
to do.
They are waiting for it to get near enough its sell by date to be
marked down...

LOL! Well done

Si

Huge wrote:

Indeed.

I never use word without managing to turn the air blue.

I'm glad it's not just me, then.

I was about to say that!

I worked in Tech Pubs for some years, and Word is a heap of cack for
complex techie documents.

Too right. Especially when you need a group of related documents and
want to try cross reference tables that reach between documents.

I have not yet found a way in word of doing something that was easy in
WP - Say you have a engineering change request form that updates a doc.
When you issue the new version of the doc, you need to produce a
version summary in the front of the doc that states which change
requests have been implemented in this version, and which pages were
affected. In WP I would mark a target called say SCR0245 (matching the
change request ID), and drop that target next to each change I made.
Then in the summary you can put in a auto reference to page numbers and
it gives you a nice list of every page number with that target on it.
And you can then compare the doc against the previous version and have
it redline or sidebar the changes as well.

(Actually, it's just a heap of cack, period.)

So it seems.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
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\================================================= ================/

On May 15, 12:40 pm, Tony Bryer wrote:

As in many planning stories, "the view of the community" is usually the view
of a vociferous subset. When our local Great Mills, now Wickes was up for PP
the campaign against it was on two fronts: "No one wants it" and "When it
opens it will bring traffic chaos to the area". The evident contradiction
between these two was lost on most people.

There's not necessarilly any contradiction in those fronts at all -
perhaps no one in the *local area* wants it but many others, from
*outside the area*, may travel to it if such outlets are thin on the
ground in that part of the country? They sound like fair enough
concerns to me... (perhaps I'm one of those 'most people'!)

Mathew

Mathew Newton wrote:
On May 15, 12:40 pm, Tony Bryer wrote:

As in many planning stories, "the view of the community" is usually the view
of a vociferous subset. When our local Great Mills, now Wickes was up for PP
the campaign against it was on two fronts: "No one wants it" and "When it
opens it will bring traffic chaos to the area". The evident contradiction
between these two was lost on most people.

There's not necessarilly any contradiction in those fronts at all -
perhaps no one in the *local area* wants it but many others, from
*outside the area*, may travel to it if such outlets are thin on the
ground in that part of the country? They sound like fair enough
concerns to me... (perhaps I'm one of those 'most people'!)


Mm. Cambridge is a complete example of the above. Once a thriving market
town attracting shoppers from a 30 mile radius catchment area, its now a
place to avoid completely, since it has been made virtually unusable by
cars, in order that tourists and residents can cycle all over it and
play football in its streets.

Shoppers now travel further, to less car unfriendly places, or to out of
town supermarkets, or shop online. Residents who have to get to the
business parks by car, move out to the surrounding villages, creating
traffic issues there.

But the council firmly believes this is good for the town.


Mathew

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

Mm. Cambridge is a complete example of the above. Once a thriving market
town attracting shoppers from a 30 mile radius catchment area, its now a
place to avoid completely, since it has been made virtually unusable by
cars, in order that tourists and residents can cycle all over it and play
football in its streets.

Shoppers now travel further, to less car unfriendly places, or to out of
town supermarkets, or shop online. Residents who have to get to the
business parks by car, move out to the surrounding villages, creating
traffic issues there.

But the council firmly believes this is good for the town.

I don't see the town suffering for this - on the contrary, it appears to be
thriving. So maybe they're doing something right?

cheers,
clive

On 15 May 2007 12:06:19 GMT Huge wrote :
I worked in Tech Pubs for some years, and Word is a heap of cack for
complex techie documents.

(Actually, it's just a heap of cack, period.)

I am somewhat relieved to read these comments. I thought that using one
of our software manuals as a learning tool would be a good idea: we
have styles, page numbering (starting again after prelims, what pain!),
contents, indexing, cross referencing, pictures etc.

When I took the decision to switch this to Word I expected to be hugely
impressed, given that WordPro effectively stopped being developed
c.1998. Then I put my frustration down to being a novice. Now I find
out the truth!

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Mm. Cambridge is a complete example of the above. Once a thriving market
town attracting shoppers from a 30 mile radius catchment area, its now a
place to avoid completely, since it has been made virtually unusable by
cars, in order that tourists and residents can cycle all over it and
play football in its streets.

When it was a thriving market town the majority of shoppers probably went
there by bus - two car families weren't the norm and dad drove the car -
if indeed the family had one. Now everyone has cars and wants to use them
this sort of old town simply hasn't either the roads or the carparks in
the centre for them all. Of course you could always knock down all the
shops etc to make carparks...

--
*Ah, I see the f**k-up fairy has visited us again

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.