O'Briens Irish Sandwich Bars - Not The Taste of Home

O'Briens "Irish" Sandwich shops really get on my tits. It's the Monty Python "Cheese Shop Sketch" for real.

"Can I have mine in some soda farls?"
"No we don't sell those"
"how about in some wheaten or soda bread?"
"er... no"
"This is an Irish Sandwich shop?"
"Yes"
"Okay what can I have it in then?"
"A bagel, a wrap or some shamrock foccacia bread"
"What part of Ireland do they come from?"

I actually asked in an O'Briens if they sold potato bread. "No" I was informed "we don't sell any of that foreign stuff."

It's even more ironic as the founder of the company, Brodie Sweeney claims that their shops “Irishness” is "...integral to the O’Briens experience." I'll try and remember that the next time I see one of their stores advertising a Chicken Chili Wrap as "traditional Irish".

Our Survey Says....Exactly What We Wanted (13)

Today's Survey....Consultants offering web accessibility advice claim retail web sites inaccessible

M&S tops High Street web ranking

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6180362.stm

Marks & Spencer's website has topped a new ranking of user-friendly websites, with its fashion retailing rivals Next and Top Shop struggling at the bottom.
Web usability consultants Webcredible assessed the websites of 20 of the UK's most popular High Street retailers.
It cited confusing search results, poor navigation and complicated checkout procedures as the worst mistakes.

If they'd only used Webcredible they'd be able to call upon the powers of Dr Webcredible and his superfriends, Hyperlink and Webcrawler. You can follow their adventures here .

Podcasts - The Sound Of No One Listening

Some shocking research reported on the BBC. No-one listens to podcasts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6175728.stm

After all the hype, all the techno jargon, the pages and pages of analysis, and the warnings of the end of broadcasting as we know it, a survey says pretty much what we all knew. No one listens to them.

Charlene Li, one of the authors of the Forrester report admitted on her blog at the time of the report that "measurement is still really hard to do". In particular she said that "counting podcast downloads is a dubious way to measure usage".

Bravo Charlene. The figures don't fit the projections so how they were measured is "dubious". I wonder if the figures had been in line with projections whether she'd have expressed the same concerns.

Next they'll be telling us that no-one reads blogs..

Advertising Claims - Head and Shoulders Shampoo - Now "up 100% flake-free"

When I heard this claim (a couple of months ago) I thought I was imagining things. Depressingly not. It's on their website as well

Our Classic Clean shampoo with new HydraZinc formula is now better than ever! It's formula, containing zinc, not only helps keep your scalp healthy and up to 100% flake-free but also combats itchiness and tightness as well. Plus, the pH-balanced formula is gentle enough for everyday use and leaves your hair looking and feeling thoroughly clean

How the frig can they claim with a straight face that something is up to 100% effective? This is just English twisted to breaking point.

WTF?

I was standing looking at the magazines in Tescos and a thought struck me. Could someone please explain the rationale behind the covers of "Stuff"? Every month there is some female model, draped provocatively around some new games console, mp3 player or alike. My question is, do the uber geeks who buy this really think that the model, with the big tits, long legs and firm arse, on the cover is really getting aroused stroking that fecking Laptop? Perhaps they think "if I had that (insert brand) she'd wanna stroke me". No she won't. She'll think "you're a wab..."

Our Survey Says....Exactly What We Wanted (12)

Today's Survey....Company selling PC backup utilities says you should back up your PC

Top 10 data disasters revealed

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6147984.stm

Hard drives kept in dirty socks and the dangers of oiling your PC feature in a top 10 list of data disasters. In one case, a university professor needed help after he tried to fix a squeaky desktop computer by squirting it with WD-40 oil. The squeak went away, but so did his data. In another case, the decision to send a damaged hard drive to data recovery firm OnTrack, which compiled the list, in a pair of socks did more damage.

Further

"No matter how catastrophic the situation may seem, it pays to have your hard drive or storage device evaluated by a professional service because chances are good that we'll be successful in recovering critical data regardless of how it was lost in the first place," said Phil Bridge, managing director of Ontrack UK.

I sure that the results of this survey are in no related to it being commissioned by a company which offers a data recovery service. Or something...

Breaking News - Customer gets refund....

Keep up to date with this breaking story here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6144782.stm

You must be frigging joking. This is news worthy? Some geek with an agenda gets a refund on a PC because it runs Windows Xp? And he's still not happy - he wants the money to come from Microsoft. You know I wonder how people like this would deal with a real crisis in their lives.

Our Survey Claims....Exactly What We Wanted (11)

Today's Survey....More stuff about Universities

Tutorials 'hit by staffing cuts'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6132108.stm

Rising student numbers and staffing cuts mean some undergraduates are receiving less academic support, the education quality watchdog has claimed.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6099768.stm
and how it was reported.

Now I'm not going to debate (for once) the accuracy or bias which may have influenced this survey all I want to know is why one warrants "says", but the second gets the caveat "claims".
Does this mean that one less reliable that the other? Was the methodology open to question? Are the QAA not to be trusted?

Our Survey Says....Exactly What We Wanted (10)

Today's Survey....Company which builds websites for retailers says most retail websites are too slow

Websites face four-second cut-off

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6131668.stm

If a website takes longer than four seconds to load, shoppers are likely to abandon it, a survey suggests.

I wonder how many customers from this list http://www.akamai.com/html/customers/customer_list.html they tried?

Er...

Why do marketers and advertisers think adding the prefix "i" to a word makes it some how more relevant?
i-it i-fucking i-doesn't.

Why do "analysts" and "industry insiders" think having two incompatible high definition video disc systems (BluRay and HD-DVD) is a bad thing, while having at least five incompatible video games systems (PS2, that Nintendo thing, the two xboxs and PCs (not including handheld systems) is a good thing?

Our Survey Says....Exactly What We Wanted (9)

Today's Survey....Organisation plugging Digital TV says people aren't buying digital TVs

Sales setback for digital TV sets

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6120442.stm

Almost two-thirds of television sets sold recently in the UK cannot receive digital TV signals.
Digital-ready TVs only accounted for 36% of sales over the summer, according to Digital UK - the independent body leading the switchover.

There's no question of analogue TVs becoming redundant," said Jon Steel, a spokesman for Digital UK, "but people find it easier to have integrated digital TVs".


This is, of course, utter rot. A TV with a SCART socket on the back is "Digital Compatible" in the same way that it is "VCR Compatible" and "DVD Compatible". And it's not like SCART connections are some sort of expensive new fangled technology that only uber-geeks use. SCARTs have been standard on TV's and VCR's for the last 20 years (they were introduced in France in the late 70's for goodness sake before being adopted across Europe).

It's even more inaccurate because the majority of DVB (digital tv settop boxes) sold also have an old type "aerial through" connection. Which means you simply plug the aerial into the DVB box, then take the cable and stick it into the back of the TV. Then you tune in a spare channel on the TV to the Set-Top box and bob is your uncle. Digital TV.

If this sounds familiar then it's exactly what that nice man from Laskey's did when your da bought the families first video in all it's piano key, top loading, one event timer, wired remote control glory. Indeed you could get your big old Ferguson TX set (complete with it's wood effect plastic finish) down from the roof space, plug in the same VCR (which will still work - old video recorders were built like battlecruisers) and then attach your set-top box. 21st Century Digital TV. 80's style.

Our Survey Says...Exactly What We Wanted (8)

Today's Survey.... Jargon damages work performance, finds organisation who offer to improve work performance

Workplace jargon 'isolates staff'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6118828.stm

Needless jargon in the workplace is baffling employees and widening the divide between management and staff, a survey suggests. Investors in People said that the proliferation of phrases such as "blue-sky thinking" and "brain dump" was damaging to British industry.

Directly from the press release the BBC semi reheated, Nicola Clark, Director at Investors in People (UK) claimed

"The research gives bosses an invaluable insight into the impact of management jargon on the workplace. Whilst it can be a useful shorthand at times, managers need to be more alert to when and how they use it. Cutting jargon out of everyday communication is clearly a challenge, with almost half (48%) of employees that use jargon admitting to using it without thinking. However, as our research shows, if used inappropriately, jargon can be an obstacle to understanding, which ultimately can impact on an individual's performance and an organisation's productivity. "

So meaningless jargon damages industry. I wonder what impact meaningless surveys have?

Er....

Why is it when TV documentaries interview people are speaking in their native language, they always insist in having a voiceover in a "comedy" English version? I watched a thing the other night about the Napoleonic Wars and it was like listening to Allo' Allo' (with more laughs, obviously)
Why when they insist on showing "recreations" they shoot them in B&W, undercrank the film and add noise to the picture to give it that "authentic silent movie gleam". I particularly enjoyed a documentary about Brunel which featured quite a few of these. The problem is that Brunel died in 1859, silent film didn't appear until c1894. It's as accurate as having John Lennon write a blog and releasing songs for download via his web site...

Which? Watch

It's that time of the month again. Two surveys caught the media's eye. One about dirty kitchens in Hospitals (like you have a choice which kitchen you can eat from while your in hospital) but the more interesting one "revealing" Supermarket financial services aren't as good as that offered by dedicated financial institutions. Shocking isn't it? I mean everything else supermarkets offer the consumer is the best avaliable. Just take a look at the quality of the own brand food they peddle. They only use finest, continental, hand selected, pure, artificial colouring and preservative. It seems they apply the same standards to their banking services. Of course there is a more fundamental point. What do people expect? Tescos, Waitrose, Sainsburys etc are bloody supermarkets not banks. If I could buy 1/2 a kilo of sprouts in a Barclays I'd kind of expect they'd be worse value and quality than those in Tesco.....

Our Survey Says...Exactly What We Wanted (7)

Today's Survey...Survey commissioned by Doctors claims Doctors are the most trusted profession.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6105616.stm

Members of the public trust doctors above all other professionals, according to a survey.
Pollsters commissioned by the Royal College of Physicians asked people whom they would trust to tell the truth from a list of 19 professions

Further

Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians, said he was delighted with the survey's findings.
The public approval fitted in with efforts made by the college to "redefine the doctor-patient relationship in a changing world", he said.
"With patients having access to an increasing range of health facts and figures about their health, it is reassuring to know that the doctor-patient relationship is still highly valued."

You'd think I'd made this up. But to be honest (as demonstrated by the last week) I don't need to. People may wonder why I think surveys are useless and the media are idiots for repeatedly publishing the results of these spurious polls without one single piece of analysis. But the question is - if I can do it why can't the media?