Odds and Ends.

When retailers say "sale ends soon" I wonder do they mean an imperial soon or a metric one? 

I've resumed my struggle with DLNA.  I bought a nice client, wired up my blu-ray player and waited for the fireworks. As concepts go flawed doesn't even come close to describing it. For example, its inability to deal with albums with tracks which fade into each other. Now, depending on the DLNA client you use, and the format the music has been ripped in, it is possible to avoid 

"So let me introduce to you the one and only Billy Shears... 

Silence.
Pause.
Delay.
More silence.
A longer pause.
A bit more delay.

...Billy Shears" 

But only after an inordinate amount of footering. As it sits, DLNA is unusable. 

Dixon's have posted more comedy sales figures and results which boil down to "if you ignore all our losses we made a profit." They've a year, 18 months tops. They'll not go bust as such, more likely they'll have their supplier insurance removed or hiked up. The end will come shortly after. Indeed it would not surprise me if suppliers were already hedging their bets and delivering directly to the customer rather than use Curry’s infrastructure.

 Recently there was a shocking exposé which revealed celebrity experts are completely useless at solving issues. No surprises from this quarter. Of course their utter inadequacy hasn't prevented the BBC from running a programme where "celebrity chef(s)" solve UK food poverty. They even had the big event at the end when they triumphantly present their budget feast to a motley a collection of ne'er do well's as I've ever seen, selected to appear at the end of a shite, celebrity centric, TV show*. Because appearing at the end of shite, celebrity centric, TV show's is all they are famous for. Needless to say they all pouted and declared the food "lovely" and pledged their support** - for as long as the camera was there anyway. 

The most recent instalment featured one intrepid chef, tasked with making budget fish and chips, flying off to Norway to select the ingredients. And you thought shopping at Waitrose was excessive. Clearly this isn't aimed at the impoverished single mum, forced to go hungry so her children can eat, but rather those stricken individuals who can no longer afford fresh Fennel and are forced to buy the dried stuff.

*There is a subset of celebrities who exist purely to fill the role of attendees in shows such as this. Of course this is nothing new. Watch any "An Audience With" and gaze in wonder at Wincey Willis and Rusty Lee. 


** They'd also roped along some Supermarket representatives who committed themselves to, well nothing really. Just once I'd like one of them to turn around and tell the instigators that no they won't be supporting this, as it has nothing to do with the notional cause it supposedly embraces, but is in fact a lot of self serving shit.