London Banter - View Single Post

Roland Perry · June 3rd 19, 11:06 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In message , at 15:51:46 on Sun, 2 Jun
2019, remarked:
On Sun, 2 Jun 2019 10:25:48 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 08:14:05 on Sun, 2 Jun
2019, remarked:
That problem is easily solved by visiting a shop and buying the goods there.

Not really, even not-that-local shops don't have most of the things I
buy online. Let alone the range of choice, or open Sundays.

Unless you're buying dilithium for a warp drive you're building in your
shed I'd be rather surprised if you couldn't find it in a shop.

The example which for me was a tipping point involved black cup-hooks.

Several shops (including ones with only seasonal DIY sections such as
Sainsbury's) as well as regular hardware stores, pound-stores and so on
had either chrome or white, or both. None had black. It doesn't help if
I can buy chrome cup-hooks in five shops, but black ones in none.

It's also a challenge to get spare parts, even from franchised outlets.
A few years ago I needed a new glass turntable for my Panasonic
Microwave oven, and by some miracle [do you have one nearby?] there was
a Panasonic dealer in my High Street.

They sent me packing, on the grounds that all they really wanted to sell
me was a new flat-screen TV.

A year or two previously I was "forced" to buy a Panasonic laptop by
mail order from a dealership in I think Cornwall, because it was the
only one in the whole country which had availability.

When you have a full time job you can't wait in for some oik in a van to show
up sometime between 8am-8pm so end up collecting from the delivery office or
depot anyway. Whats the point?

We have neighbours, and they take parcels in. Other stuff fits through

Yeah, and then when you go and collect them the neighbours are out or, as
happened to my wife a few years back, they'd gone on holiday the same day and
she had to wait a week to get her parcel.

Obviously the relationships with your neighbours have broken down,
otherwise situations like that wouldn't happen.

Also we've stopped accepting parcels for a certain neighbour who seems
to order something every week, we're not the bloody post office.

I'm happy to accept parcels that regularly for a neighbour who I know
will claim it as soon as they arrive back home an hour or two later. Not
so much for neighbours with a track record of waiting for several days.
--
Roland Perry