Knowledge LossComplaint to NTLComplaint To The BankMen and Rest RoomsThe Winter OlympicsDisgruntled Footie Fan
Knowledge Loss
Complaint to NTL
Complaint To The Bank
Men and Rest Rooms
The Winter Olympics
Disgruntled Footie Fan
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I believe it was Pauli who said of a particularly promising student, "So young, and yet he knows so little!"
So far as species goes, when I was seven, I knew that species were kinds. There was the bug kind, the dog kind, the cat kind, and the Italians down the street. People who are capable of retaining this knowledge when they are adults become creationists.
When I was twelve, I knew that species were grouped into bigger groups, and so there were mammals, dinosaurs, trees, and watches found on heaths. People who can retain this knowledge as adults become intelligent design theorists.
When I was sixteen, I had discovered sex, I'm afriad, and so I became aware that species are organisms that can "do it" and have babies. This led pretty quickly to the biological species concept, and so I became a neo-Darwinian. People who can retain at least this much knowledge become adherents of the BSC, and because they have a sex life, they are much happier than creationists and IDers.
By the time I was 30, my sex life had fallen off somewhat, and so I became interested in the bigger picture - phylogeny. Since I had also learned set theory, I became aware that species were the smallest diagnosable set in a phylogenetic tree, and I became a cladist. By now, I knew almost nothing.
At 40, my sex life and knowledge base had dropped to zero. Now I was ready to begin my PhD. Who knows what I won't know when I'm 50. By the time I reach Harter's and Gans' age, I will become a knowledge black hole, sucking in the knowledge of those around me and putting it where it can never be reached.
thewilkins@bigpond.com (John Wilkins)
This a copy of a complaint letter that was actually received by NTL...
Dear Cretins,
I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-1 deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions.
Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.
My initial installation was cancelled without warning or notice, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat ar*e waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive at all, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website.... how? I alleviated the boredom to some small degree by playing with my testi*les for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum.
Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After several further telephone calls (actually 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks) my modem arrived... a total of six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it. I estimate that the downtime of your internet servers is roughly 35%... these are usually the hours between about 6pm and midnight, Monday to Friday, and most of the useful periods over the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection.
I have made 9 telephone calls on my mobile to your no-helpline this week, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled boll*ck jugglers. I have been informed:-
Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testi*le-moments to attend to.
Frankly I don't care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue. I thought BT were sh*t, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bast*rds you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum -incompetents of the highest order. British Telecom - w*nkers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.
Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you do likewise, and cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver - any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief - although these feelings will quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps a small measure of bemused rage.
I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you, and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and it's worthless employees. Have a nice day - may it be the last in your miserable short life, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of tw*ts...
This is a letter sent to a Bank. The bank thought it amusing enough to publish it in the New York Times.
Dear Sir,
I am writing to thank you for bouncing the cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations some three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check, and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire salary, an arrangement which, I admit, has only been in place for eight years.
You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account of $50 by way of penalty for the inconvenience I caused your bank. My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.
You have set me on the path of fiscal righteousness. No more will our relationship be blighted by these unpleasant incidents, for I am restructuring my affairs in 2000, taking as my model the procedures, attitudes and conduct of your very bank. I can think of no greater compliment, and I know you will be excited and proud to hear it. To this end, please be advised about the following.
First, I have noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, ever-changing, pre-recorded, faceless entity, which your bank has become. From now on I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh and blood person. My mortgage and loan repayments will, therefore and hereafter, no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee of your branch, whom you must nominate.
You will be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contact Status, which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be counter signed by a Justice of the Peace, and that the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number, which he/she must quote in all dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Let me level the playing field even further by introducing you to my new telephone system, which you will notice, is very much like yours. My Authorised Contact at your bank, the only person with whom I will have any dealings, may call me at any time and will be answered by an automated voice. By pressing Buttons on the phone, he/she will be guided through an extensive set of menus:
While this may on occasion involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration. This month I've chosen a refrain from The Best of Woody Guthrie "Oh, the banks are made of marble, With a guard at every door, And the vaults are filled with silver, That the miners sweated for" After twenty minutes of that, our mutual contact will probably know it all by heart.
On a more serious note, we come to the matter of cost. As your bank has often pointed out, the ongoing drive for greater efficiency comes at a cost -- a cost that you have always been quick to pass on to me. Let me repay your kindness by passing some costs back.
First, there is the matter of advertising material you send me. This I will read for a fee of $20/page. Inquiries from your nominated contact will be billed at $5 per minute of my time spent in response.
Any debits to my account, as, for example, in the matter of the penalty for the dishonoured cheque, will be passed back to you. My new phone service runs at 75 cents a minute (even Woody Guthrie doesn't come free), so you would be well advised to keep your inquiries brief and to the point.
Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.
Your humble client
Greg
(The author is responding to a woman who accidentally walked into the men's restroom):
Please don't feel bad. It wasn't you entering the men's washroom that caused that guy to pee on the guy next to him. Hell, we do that all the time. It's rare us guys ever hit what were aiming for. Sometimes I go into the washroom, start to pee, and then just start spinning around; just so I'll make sure I hit something.
You see, something you ladies should understand by now is that men's penises have a mind of their own. A guy can go into a bathroom stall because all the urinals are being used, take perfect aim at the toilet, and his penis will still manage to piss all over the roll of toilet paper, down his left pant leg, and onto his shoe. I'm telling 'ya those little buggers can't be trusted.
After being married 28 years my wife has me trained. I'm no longer allowed to pee like a man - standing up. I am required to sit down and pee. She has convinced me that this is a small price to pay. Otherwise, if she had gone to the toilet one more time at night and either sat on a pee soaked toilet seat, or fell right into the toilet because I forgot to put the seat down, she was going to kill me in my sleep.
Now another thing us guys don't usually like to talk about, but because you and I have become such good friends and you think I'm such a classy guy, I might as well be candid with you because it's a real problem, and you ladies need to be understanding about it. It's the dreaded "morning wood."
Most mornings us guys wake up with two things. A tremendous desire to pee, and a penis so hard you could cut diamonds with it. Well, no matter how hard you try, you can't get that thing to bend, and if it won't bend you can't aim, well hell, if you can't aim you have no choice but to piss all over the wall paper and that damn fuzzy toilet seat cover you women insist on putting on the toilet.
And by the way, when you use those damn fuzzy toilet seat covers, the friggin' toilet seat won't stay up by itself. So that means we have to use one hand to hold up the toilet seat and the other hand to try to control our less than perfect aim. Now sometimes, when you're newly married, (and I know the guys in here will back me up on this) you think you can get the toilet seat with that damn fuzzy thing to stay up. You jam it back and compress that fuzzy thing until the seat stays there. OK, so you start to pee, but then that compressed fuzzy starts to decompress and without warning that damn toilet seat comes flying down snd tries to whack off your weenie. So us guys will not lift a toilet seat with a fuzzy, it's just not safe.
I tried to delicately explain this morning situation to my wife. I told her... look, it won't bend. She said, "so sit down like I told you to do all the rest of the time."
OK. I tried sitting down on the toilet with "morning wood." Well it's is very hard to get it bent under the toilet seat, and before I could manage it, I had pissed all over the bath towels hanging on the wall across the room. Now, even if you are sitting down and you can get it forced down under the toilet seat, when you start to pee the pee shoots out from the crack between the bottom of the toilet seat and the top of the bowl. You piss all over the back of your knees and it runs down the back of our legs on to that matching fuzzy horseshoe rug you keep putting on the floor in front of the toilet.
I have found the only effective manoeuvre to deal with this morning urinary dilemma is to assume the flying Superman position laying over the toilet seat. This takes a great deal of practice, perfect balance, and split time precision but it's the only sure way to get all the pee in the bowl during the first morning pee. So you ladies have to understand that us men are not totally to blame. We are sensitive to your concerns about hygiene and bathroom cleanliness, but there are times when things just get beyond our control. It's not our fault, it's just Mother Nature.
Having been inadvertently hooked by the completely ludicrous sport of curling, I have taken to watching a little of the Winter Olympics in the evening and they are a Misanthrope's Paradise.
Introduced by shouty lesbians who spend much of their time playing computer games with each other, which in itself doesn't speak to me of TV Licence value-for-money, we have so far witnessed:
The Luge
Mad people - and in the case of the female South American entrant a whale encased in rubber - leap onto a passing tea tray and hurtle round a Scalextric course composed of sheet ice. The winner appears to be the person who arrives at the end of the run with their head in roughly the same position as it was at the beginning.
Speed Skating
Very drunk people who have no idea they are wearing skates falling down and taking others with them. This is one of our favourites. Sadly, the noise from the onlookers precludes our being able to tell whether those taking part are singing The Happy Little Goblin Song, although this appears to be the case.
Ski Jumping
Latex fetishists fall off the side of a mountain with sticks on their feet.
But for sheer misanthropy it is hard to beat
Women's Ice Hockey
More shouty lesbians, whacking merry hell out of each other with shorter, thicker sticks. When we caught up with them they were playing that part of the match defined as The Second Period. Any game that requires Dykes on Ice to keep walloping each other for a full two months has definitely got my vote.
Four Man Bobsleigh
Don't miss the four man bobsleigh, where four Kwik-Fit fitters leap into a Formula 1 car simultaneously and drive it down a chute, having forgotten to put the wheels on.
The engines are crap too. However hard they push they never seem to be able to jump start them before it's too late and they all have to get in and freewheel before the thing sets off on its own.
Britain's apparently good at this one.
I'm feeling all angry about these modern day footballers, I know why they have gone all soft - it's because of poncy names. That's what it is.
Remember in the old days, when footy players kicked a f*cking ball made out of ten pound of clay stitched inside a steel-reinforced leather shell with laces made out of piano wire? Well, in them days players could only survive the rigours of the game because they were called things like Albert, Bert, Harry, Bill, Eddie, Bob, Jack and Tommy. f*cking tough names for f*cking tough men, them was.
And what do we have now? Gareth, Jason, Wayne, Dean, Ryan, Jamie, Robbie, . F*cking tarts' names, they are. Great big f*cking jessies. No wonder the ball's like a f*cking balloon and shin pads are made of lightweight poncy kevlar. In the old days you never saw a Len Shackleton or a Billy Wright with a whoosy little Sondico piece of paper down his little socks. F*cking shinpads in them days was made out of library books, and bloody thick library books they were too! and socks was like sackcloth. Same with the jerseys. F*cking shirts with holes in now so they can breathe. Yes, so that little Jody's hairless chest can breathe and he doesn't get a chill. F*ck off.
Stanley Matthews used to dribble round Europe's finest wearing a f*cking tent top and shorts cobbled together from the jacket of his de-mob suit. Aye, he fucking did. No wonder players fall over all the time whenever an opponent comes anywhere near them. And they never used to show arses at one another either. Can you imagine what might have happened if Don Revie had flashed his ring at Nat Lofthouse during a City-Bolton Wanderers game? He'd have got one of them size-13 hobnail f*ckers up his b*stard chuff.
Goal celebrations? Don't talk to me about goal celebrations. Crawling on the floor and thrusting their hips at the crowd. Huh! I'd like to have seen Cliff Bastin do that after a run down the left flank and crossing for Alex James to fire home a winner. Handshakes...and that was all you got. That and a w*nk in the showers afterwards.
Sixty grand a f*cking week! Ha! I wouldn't pay 'em tuppence. Two bob Tommy Lawton used to get...a month! And Tom Finney still worked as a plumber four days a week when he was playing for England. It's true, you know. It f*cking is. Players had to work them days just to make up their money. Not like today. Stan Pearson had to clean sewers and doubled up as Old Trafford sh*thouse cleaner. He had to go off during one game because some c*nt had built a log cabin and blocked the U-bend.
So I say we start calling kids real male names again. If you're having a kid, don't even consider poncy names and shite names like what people call their kids these days. Otherwise what we gonna get in twenty years' time? The England team full of players called Keanu, Ronan, Ashley and f*cking Chesney. F*ck that!
Call your kids Alf, Herbert, Len, Frank, Fred and Wilf. And let's get the poxy lasses names out of the game once and for all...!
I thank you.