Whined and dined...

I was getting earache of the second Mrs Bell for staying in all weekend. You know the sort of thing, "I never go anywhere and all you do is play on that stupid computer"… "And another thing…."

So I gave in - as I always do - and took my beloved to an outlet mall for a bit of 'buy what you like' shopping and a free lunch. The outlet mall is one of those places where they sell stuff especially made for outlets and then badge it up as 'high street brands'. Funny you never see it in the high street shops. It's mainly imported tat marked up to sell down to a true value price. What saving????

Whilst I was stood at the counter ordering she texted me from her seat… "And a latte´". Bloody cheek. When I brought the food back to her table she gave me grief because there were no skinny fries.

I pointed out that if I'd bought some she'd have whinged on about my calorie intake, heart attacks, etc with jibes like, 'you're a fat git' and 'you'll get spots with all that fried food' and all that sort of grief.

Actually it was one of the nicest burgers I've had for a while. The staff were friendly, the tables were clean, and the service was prompt. The bun was packed with fresh crisp salad, firm tomato and savoury cheese. Not bad. I had to search for the bacon but it was there - buried under the beef burger.

After the rigours of earlier in the day it was a pleasant break. My electricity direct debit renewal landed on the mat this morning. I'd overpaid by £50 and used less electricity that budgeted for in the last 6 months so they only wanted another £10 a month EXTRA on the DD to make sure I didn't go into arrears. I called them.

The call with two very helpful polite people based in the UK resulted in me cancelling my DD arrangement and going back to paying whatever the bill for the period required. I'm convinced this DD lark is a scam. They take your money, more than you need to pay and salt it away - probably getting a 5 or 6% interest on it then (I suspect) I'd have a fight on my hands to get it back. Of course these lovely people were sympathetic but equally seemed unable to justify their paymaster's extortionate behaviour convincingly.

The whole aggravating experience too 58 minutes.

How do old people without computers and degrees in maths cope with this nonsense? It's a deliberately confusing experience designed to bewilder the customer. I don't know the answer but these people are shysters, working in a cartel based monopoly. And we are their cash cows.

I also spent 22 minutes booking six flights in Australia to strange airports with two airlines I've never used before. Easy peasy.

I got my car insurance renewal yesterday. They said if I could get a cheaper quote they'd price match. I'd already done that so I asked for them to oblige. After 10 minutes of tedious questioning they found a variant worth £20 in their policy that the new company hadn't factored into their quote. I should go back and get another quote.

I pointed out in a firm manner that as we'd now already agreed they were charging too much why didn't they just I've me a discount instead of buggering me about. In fact I said if I have to go back to the others I'll book with them. That last comment saved me £70 and I stayed with my current insurer.

There's a whole industry growing around this 'price matching nonsense'. Nothing has an honest value these days. Banks, power companies, Insurance companies and the supermarkets are having a laugh.


I've had a bad day.