Blackpool - 2nd RANT

OK, so my first RANT about Blackpool concentrated mainly on the fact that everyone was FAT, everyone SMOKED and everyone had HYPER KIDS.


I still stand by that RANT!!!


BLACKPOOL is the 'tackiest' place in the whole world (in my opinion).


It's also one of the most fascinating places that I've ever been too.


I LOVE BLACKPOOL!!!


Where else can you buy a large glass of wine for £3.30 and sit looking out to sea?  Where else can you buy a large fish & chips for £2.99.


Where else could 'Jeremy Kyle' broadcast his show from.....................  for the rest of his life???


Blackpool is so tacky; its actually stylish?!!!


A few months ago I watched '4 In a Bed' and it came from Blackpool and there were really snobbish people on it who said they would never, ever go to Blackpool.  The Blackpool hosts said that there was something for everyone.  And I thought.........  Oh yeah, get real, some of us like to have a bit of class in our lives???


But actually; there is something for everyone in Blackpool....................


I've just walked 24 miles of the 'Lancashire Coastal Path'.


I've not been up the Blackpool Tower cos I hate heights.  And I've not been to the Pleasure Beach because I hate heights.  And I've not been in any of the amusement arcades because I hate stuff like that.


............But I've walked for more than 24 miles.  And I've had a very cheap glass of wine in a beer garden in the sunshine and I've stayed in the most fabulous hotel.


And I know I'm a 'ranting old middle aged spinster'..................


.............BUT, actually BLACKPOOLS OK!!!


.............So if you're a walker or a biker or a hiker or a cyclist or a twitcher or a surfer or a swimmer or a horse rider or a runner or anything else.................  BLACKPOOL has something for all of us.


PS - It's still full of FAT smokers.  And a friend of mine has just done a bit of research and found out that something like 27% of Blackpool pregnant woman still smoke.  As I say................  'JK get yourself down here@.  LOL LOL LOL!!!!

Blackpool - 1st RANT

Not really sure if this is so much of a RANT, but an observation?

I’m in Blackpool for a couple of days......................  And seriously, everyone is FAT, everyone smokes, nobody has any teeth, and ‘Jeremy Kyle’ really should just broadcast his show from here.

OK so I’m sure that’s a bit of a ‘generalisation’...............  But seriously.............

................All the fat kids are wandering around with their fat parents and fat siblings and fat uncles & aunties.  All of whom have a cigarette in their hands.  And all I can hear anyone saying is................  ‘Can I have some chips, can I have a burger, can I have some ice cream, can I have some candy floss.’  Etc, etc, etc,  It’s 3.30pm in the afternoon for goodness sake.

And all I’m hearing is; ‘Can I, can I, can I???’

What has happened to our society?

Why do we no longer eat meals for breakfast, lunch & dinner.  (Or even breakfast, dinner & tea which was what happened when I was a child?!)

Everyone just seems to graze on ‘snack foods’ these days which I’m sure is why all these ‘fat kids in Blackpool’ are FAT??!!

................And they’re all waiting at the tram stops to get on a tram to take them less than half a mile down the road to MacDonalds  OK I don't actually know where they're going but I have seen a lot of them get off at the MacDonalds stop?!!

....................And seriously ..............................How do all these fish & chip shops survive?  How on earth do they make any money when they’re advertising ‘fish & chips for £2.99’??? And a lot of them are saying that kids can eat for free???

First impressions – Blackpool seems like the ‘tackiest place in the world’?!

But ho, hum, let’s not be too hasty.

Sometimes, ‘first impressions’ aren’t correct??!!

Breast cancer awareness month???

Get a life people!!!


....................So I've had breast cancer.  And I've been through the whole breast cancer scenario.  And I've had an operation.  And I've had radiotherapy.  And  4 years later I'm still on breast cancer drugs.  And I totally support 'Breast Cancer Awareness Month'.


But honestly??...............................  All this 'over the top stuff' is doing my head in.


I've survived.  And for that I'm very grateful.  A lot of other people have survived.  A lot haven't.  And that is desperately sad..................


..................I'm just not sure that all this focus on 'Breast Cancer' is the right route to go down.


Breast cancer seems to get sooooo much publicity.  There's 'moonlight walks', there's 'wear it pink' campaigns', there's 'fun runs', there's 'coffee mornings'.


Don't get me wrong - Obviously having breast cancer myself, I would love to find a cure for it, and I'm more than happy for everyone to be fund raising to find a cure.


However, there are hundreds of different forms of cancer and hundreds of illnesses that need funding.  And hundreds of people that need help.


..............And I'm just not sure how 'Breast Cancer' has made it into the spotlight?


Is it because it's a 'woman thing' and woman feel empowered to do something for themselves.  But lets not forget men can get breast cancer too.


Personally, I would like the cure for cancer to be universal.


If I had one wish in the whole wide world.................  I would wish for everyone who had cancer, (whatever kind of cancer), to be able to take one tablet and make it go away.


Wouldn't that be fabulous???

Get off the internet

This weekend I have had friends to stay.  I love having friends to stay.  Having friends to stay means we can go out and about and do all the stuff that I wouldn't normally do by myself.




However.........................




................Increasingly having friends to stay....................  doesn't actually mean that we will be going out and about and doing anything???




So............... my friends arrived at 8pm on Friday night..................  And by 8.10pm they'd accessed my wifi code and were connected to the internet and were busy checking stuff on ebay/facebook etc.




I actually think I might declare my home a non wifi area if friends want to come to stay again.


Just what has happened to real live friendships???


Why does everyone need to be connected to the internet 24/7???


And the other thing that really annoys me.....................  Visitors just seem to think that they can breeze into your house and automatically get the wifi code and 'connect' and do whatever they want on the internet.


.............. I don't have 'unlimited' wifi usage.  Why would I?  I don't spend hours downloading stuff and watching stuff on the internet??


..............So I end up paying extra for everything that my visitors are doing???  And yes........  it does annoy me.  I really don't think I should be paying for their wifi usage.  They come to see me.  Or at least that's what they tell me??  So why do they need to connect to the internet the minute they arrive???


I don't watch stuff on Utube, I don't download stuff, I don't do a lot of stuff that my house guests do.  I check my emails, I faff about on Facebook & Blogger and I do a few other bits& pieces.  That's it.


Every time I have friends to stay I end up paying more for my internet connection because my so called friends/family use up all of my data limit watching stuff on the internet.  And then I'm the one who ends up paying for everything that they're doing.  And why do they need to be doing any of it if they're on holiday??!!


It really does annoy me.


I'm seriously thinking of declaring my house a 'wifi free' zone when people come to visit.


..................But then I probably wouldn't get any visitors??????  Lol!!!


Having said that...........................  Do I really want visitors that just spend their whole lives on their ipads????

Pass the blame

So here we are at the beginning of September with all the new students looking forward to going to 'uni'.


I am soooooooooo going to have a 'uni' RANT soon.


Anyway to get back to this rant...................  It has only just come to my attention that if kids these days don't get the marks they think they should have...............  exam papers can be re-marked???


As a 'ranting middle aged spinster' who did exams in the 1970's there was never such a thing as 're-marking'?? 


In my day, you sat in an exam hall in complete silence (apart from the click, click, click of the exam invigilator's knitting needles) and when you got your results you just accepted them.


A couple of years ago, my very clever nephew got As & A*s in all of his exams.  To me that was a great achievement.  But because he hadn't got an A* in one of them he said it was his teachers fault???   Why???


And also.................... to recall a conversation that I had with my 13 year old niece about subjects I hated at school, couldn't do and failed the exams in......................


................Her comment was.......................  'Oh you mustn't have had a very good teacher.'


........Nooooooooooooooooo...................... I just wasn't the brightest cookie in the box. Duh!!!


Why does everyone seem to want to put the blame onto someone else these days? 


Apparently the A level markers these days are given 3 mins to do it.  Which means that any kid who doesn't get the grade they think they should, can have it re-marked.  The school can request to have it remarked.  The parents can request to have it remarked.  The kids can request to have it remarked.


Obviously this happens a lot because 'pushy parents' and schools that want to 'up the league tables' obviously want better results.


BUT.................  I think it would be really interesting to see if kids that had been predicted lower grades and then got higher grades.......................


...................Said, 'Please re-mark this'?????


Can't see that ever happening???

Online banking

Haven't ranted for ages but I'm seriously annoyed that the two credit cards that I own seem to have converted to paperless billing.  I don't have a problem with that.  I'm a very techie ranting middle aged spinster!!


What I do have a problem with is................. that I haven't a clue when they told me they were going to do this?????


And now I've just had some random email telling me that my statement is available to view online and when I clicked into my account I've got an overdue amount of £27.89 to pay???


I have NEVER in my whole entire life had to pay late charges/interest for my credit cards.  I pay them off in full every single month and have done for more than 30 years.  This is so so annoying.  Perhaps they did send me notification of this?  But I'm pretty sure if they had, I would have made a note of it somewhere???  Maybe they just sent me an email..................  In which case I probably would have just deleted it thinking it was some kind of spam because they always contact me via snail mail.


Actually, I quite like getting my statements online.  I'll just make a note in my diary that I have to check my on line accounts to see if I have any thing to pay.


BUT.................. what really, really, really, annoyed me about paying off my credit card (with it's late charges/interest) is.......................... the DEFAULT button.


Obviously I wanted to pay off the full amount but the default button had already ticked the 'interest only' box.  So I had to un-tick it and tick the full amount box.  How many people will just carry on thinking that they're paying off the full amount (because the tick boxes weren't even parallel to the relevant charges).


This to my mind is mis-representation???


This is soooooo, soooooo annoying.


And the thing is..........................  Who do I complain to??????


If I phone any of these credit companies all you get is some automated message saying, 'Your call is important to us.  You are moving forward in the queue.'.


Just don't get me started???!!!


I think I might have to have another phone rant.  Grrrrrrrr............

Why can't holiday makers park?

So I haven't ranted for ages.  And believe me I've had loads of things to RANT about but I haven't.  I've tried to be restrained?!!




One week into the school holidays and my ressie car park is being over run with holiday maker cars................  I'm sorry but I have to rant.




What is it about holiday makers that means they can't park their cars properly?  All the holiday let agencies in this town give the holiday makers the dimensions of their car parking spaces so that they know whether their car will fit. It's not my fault if the visitors don't know what size their car is???



This is a small fishing town.  It was built hundreds of years ago when cars hadn't even been invented.  Most properties in this town don't even have a parking space so those of us who do are extremely lucky.




And yet still people come on holiday in their huge 4 x 4's expecting to be able to fit them into a space that only a smart car will fit into.  So today, in my car park there are 3 huge cars that are way to big for the spaces (& we have big spaces compared to the rest of the town?).


Should I photograph these cars and 'name & shame' the holiday makers who think it's acceptable to leave their cars in the middle of a communal car park.  This is sooooo, soooo disruptive to the rest of us?  If we want to go out or come in, we have to go knocking on doors to ask the holiday makers to move their cars so that we can actually drive into our own spaces that we occupy 52 weeks of the year.


Why on earth do people book a holiday, get told the dimensions of their parking space, and then just think they can park wherever they want, even if that means blocking other people in?


.............And don't even think that you can speak to these holiday makers in a civilised fashion.


If you so much as say to them, that the holiday let they are saying in, has confirmed the parking space dimensions, they just give you a mouthful of abuse and say they haven't measured their car.


Why not???


Every single person who comes on holiday and stays in a holiday let property in this town has to sign a form to say they've read the terms & conditions of the booking. 


They sign it, agree to everything and then just do their own thing when they arrive.  And there's nothing us ressies can do.


Makes me mad!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......................