MI5, not 9 to 5

Fucking Sainsbury's, that hotbed of criminal activity and vice has introduced state of the art technology to counteract the elements of the underworld who might prey on their unsuspecting customers. Yes, as I was leaving the store in Salford yesterday, the electronic noticeboard at the car park exit flashed up my car's registration number. What the fuck?

Why are Sainsbury's tracking its customers this way? I suppose the fact that it's the Salford store on the edge of Ordsall might say something, but come on, why do they spy on us? Do they link the data to other databases? Can they find out the customer's name and match up their visit times to shopping patterns, gleaned from the Nectar or debit card? Why oh why oh WHY?

Did I turn back to pick up the in-store leaflet "Making our car park safer" that I'd seen, that would've been too easy. I e-mailed them to ask what was to do. I've not had a response yet. I guess their customer services department have been too busy laughing at me for most of the day. Good for them.

And Royal Mail are a bunch of arseholes too. I've been expecting a parcel from France (should've known better) that should've been delivered around the 20th of January. No sign. I contacted the sender and they checked the tracking thing and they were told that the package was awaiting signature for collection, presumably not too far from here. So I copied the sender's message and other details into an e-mail to Royal Mail to see if they could track it down. Their response?

"I would like to explain that under the Universal Postal Agreement, any
enquiries regarding your item have to be initiated in the country of
origin. May I therefore suggest that you contact the senders and ask them
to provide their postal administration with the posting details. This will
enable an investigation to be made from the point of posting."

It's no wonder the fucktards at the post office can't deliver stuff when they can't even read. They're probably from Stornoway.


Brrrrrrr
It's actually a bit nippy; I suppose this is a consequence of it a) being February and b) being delightfully sunny during the day. It's actually quite warm during the day, but nippy at night. And I could go on describing the weather and when it gets warm at night after a nice sunny day (usually from about May, but only if you've had a few days of temperatures in the mid twenties), but I'm rambling because I've lost my thread....

Right, that's it. In a meeting the other day, somebody remarked that it was the middle of February already. It was at this point that I realised that more and more, I count where I am in the year by how many hours of daylight there are - anything less than 8 and I might as well be in bed.

And now it's getting lighter and brighter, Sniffy is waking from her winter depression; I've had this one since last July. Joy.

But the other day, having driven to work in glorious chilly sunshine, I overheard a woman in the car park saying "This weather's lovely, but I don't really like it any warmer than this". It was about 2°C. Stupid witch. Why don't these people who whinge about warm weather just fuck off and die somewhere, like Stornoway? Idiots.