Category Archives for FLS Rants

Loyalty In The Premiership.

It’s Mainly About The Money

Manchester United’s Paul Pogba, 26, will receive a £3.78m loyalty bonus from the club on 1 July. Hey, that’s a nice bonus for doing not a lot. What makes it even funnier is the French midfielder being on record as saying it “could be a good time to move elsewhere”

Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes players (who already earn obscene amounts) earn bonuses for winning things. Now, I’m not sure where this bonus for Pogba arises from, but as he’s won sod all this season with his club…. The mind boggles.

 

Raheem Sterling Screwing Over Liverpool

Ever touch, kick or run he gets booed and shouted at when he returns to Anfield.

His departure from Anfield was bad-tempered, with the Sterling ( under the guidance of his agent Aidy Ward ) opting to reject the Reds’ offer of a new contract, saying he wanted to join Manuel Pellegrini’s Manchester City side instead. With Liverpool missing the Premiership by a whisker, then Louis Suarez moving to Barcelona, thus splitting up the SAS partnership of Sturridge and Suarez, the pressure was on Sterling to step up to the mark. He failed, he didn’t produce what it was thought he could do/ would do.

Aidy Ward, gave an infamous radio interview which was another part in his loathing by Liverpool fans. Here he stated that his client wouldn’t accept a deal, even one that was worth £900,000 a week.

Sterling then told Liverpool manager at the time, Brendan Rogers;  he had no desire at all to travel to the Far East and Australia for the pre-season tour. Now forgive me if I am wrong, but did his contract state he could pick and choose which matches he played in? I doubt it.

 

Sicknote Sterling

So in early July, Raheem Sicknote failed to report to training supposedly due to illness.

Selling him in the £49m move to City, which at the time actually made him the most expensive English player in history was a profitable move.

 

Suarez

He arrived as the replacement for Fernando Torres, who had been sold to Chelsea for a then club record £50m. Torres made it public knowledge he wanted the move to Stamford Bridge. Another player who decided to make it public he wanted to move to Spain, to Barca. This then came about after rumours of him refusing to play for the Reds.

The same  Reds, who defended him when he was accused of racially abusing Manchester Utd player Patrice Evra. Luis Suarez was found guilty of misconduct charges for racially abusing Evra in a game played 15 October 2011. The club and felow players stood by him, even training in matching t-shirts, to show solidarity.

Luis Suarez, when not suspended for biting opponents, had fired in 82 goals and recorded 47 assists in 133 games for Liverpool. Norwich City feared him, as it was hattrick after hat-trick against the Canaries. Yes, he’s gone on to do well at Barcelona but his antics in the recent Champions League semi-finals against Liverpool have put him on the list of loathed former players.

His overreactions in the first leg after his first goal then the over the top celebrations for the other 2 goals, kinda showed the guy for what he is.

I guess his promise not to celebrate at Anfield in front of the home fans, was one he well and truly kept. Thanks to the 4-0 thrashing of Barcelona in the second leg, it was Champions League Final, the next stop. We all know the outcome there, don’t we?

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A New Life In The Sun With Dumb & Dumber

” Disaster strikes again as Bill and Betty have 24 guests arriving in 45 minutes and they still have to build the second bedroom”

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind watching a bit of tv from time to time and this is a show that I enjoyed the first series. What seems to have happened now though is the majority of the people in this show couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery.

” With guests arriving tomorrow, Sandra decides to try the shower and sinks in the gite, to ensure the water is connected”. Shock, horror although they have owned the place 8 months, they haven’t bothered to check the water or the electrics work in the gite, they’ve just decorated and built up a new bed from IKEA. No running water, but the curtains look pretty!

A New Life In The Sun The Carry On Film Version

” Claudia has rented this stunning 9 bedroom villa in Southern Spain for a whopping £3k a month on a 24 month lease and wants to open a yoga retreat. She needs this to work as she has tied all her money up in this new venture”

Maybe Claudia should have asked that one, all-important question prior to signing her life away with this 2-year lease. The question being;     ‘Is this property totally legal for me to run a business here’

Clearly asking this would save the heartache and embarrassment of finding you cannot run any business nor use it for any type of business, because it’s an illegal build. Not to worry, instead of charging your £500 a week ( excluding flights ) for your yoga retreat spa breaks, you can go to the market to sell your cheap and cheerful yoga pants instead.

Spain – Andalusia – Marbella

 

Described as – Series following intrepid expats as they chase a dream life in the sun. It’s more like watching Mission Impossible at times. yeah Fat Freddy who has supped 20 pints a week in his local, decides to sell up and move to Benidorm because he wants to open a British themed pub there. He’s never run a pub, nor even worked behind the bar but that’s not stopping him.

Next on the list is Maria, who after getting a divorce has decided to move abroad and set up as a hairdresser in Marbella. She’s going to work from home to save on costs and operate as a mobile hairstylist to the ex-pat community. She’s bringing across her 5 kids and 3 dogs, coming in her trusty 2003 Nissan minibus.

Finally, in this episode we drop into the French countryside to check out the new B&B operation run by Michael and his husband also called Michael. They both left high flying corporate jobs and have opened this business under a new name, after buying it as a going concern from the previous owners. Despite both Micheals never running any form of hotel or B&B, neither being a chef, never worked in hospitality and neither speaking a word of French, they decided to move to France for a new way of life. As funds are tight, they have decided not to employ staff but do all the jobs themselves and also rely on Google translate.

 

As they’ve no bookings they have decided to have an open day and invite all the locals round to visit their new business. Luckily one of their new neighbours speaks a little English and has offered to help promote the event. This will give the boys a chance to show off their culinary skills, by laying out some cold meat, cheese, pieces of cut up bread, a couple of dishes of nibbles and of course copious amounts of wine.

 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love new ideas, I love that people want to leave dull, boring jobs in the grey, cold and wet of the UK. Yes, it’s fucking fantastic to be sat outdoors at 7am, enjoying the sunshine, enjoying the freshly squeezed orange juice and having a coffee for 9 months of the year. If you have a trade under your belt, such as a plumber then go for it. The ex-pat areas are always looking for jobs doing, repairs to their homes. Hey, it’s easier to deal with a guy who speaks the same lingo as you, rather than risk getting lost in translation.

What I’d say though is use your common sense. Why try to open a British Bar in the middle of Benidorm, to compete with the other 100 down the same street. They all offer Sky tv for sport, Boddingtons on draught and a full English fry up. All you’re doing here is competing on price. Ever ask yourself why these bars are easy and cheap to buy? Because the previous 10 tenants have lost a fortune, found it too hard and packed up and gone. Do something different!

 

What Is Different?

Run a B&B in France or in Spain but add value. If you’re in the middle of a cycling or motorbiking tourist route, then cater for these people. If you have a large enough plot, look at running a campsite or caravan pitches. If fishing is your thing, buy a place with a lake and offer fishing holiday. People want more than a square box shaped room, so a nice French Gite or a rustic Spanish Cortijo is a better choice to buy. If you’re able to offer something more, then this gives you additional revenue streams. Cooking classes, pottery making, glass blowing, cycling holidays, bird watching or the fishing lake setting.

 

Take inspiration and ideas from the show, but please do your homework first. Remember it’s fine going to Lloret de Mar each year for 2 weeks of laying in the sun, drinking 5 pints every night and doing sweet FA for your time there. Life’s much different living and more importantly working in the sun. 40 degrees during the day in July and August is energy sapping. learn about different places in Spain, take time to visit them. It’s even worth taking a month off and doing a rental in the area you’re interested in or doing a 3 week road trip, visiting several different resorts or areas and getting a feel for the places. Same applies to France, check out the different areas and regions by researching, then go and visit them.

 

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Vehicle Hire Upgrade

You book a van rental online, 10 months in advance because you are a very well prepared person. In this instance, you’ve gone for the smallest size van, because you need to move a dozen or so boxes and a few other pieces. It’s easy as anything, so you’d think.

Fast forward all these months and the day before you are picking up said van, you get a phone call. The purpose of this call is to double check, you still want the van. Answer is positive. You almost hear the groan on the other end of the phone. “good news, we have given you a complimentary upgrade, to a Ford Transit” Is the next line of conversation.

 

That Is Not An Upgrade

Actually, it is a fob off. They screwed up, they have no little vans available. Despite booking 10 months earlier, they have screwed up the booking, so instead are offering a bigger van. This is no good to man nor beast. The idea of the tiny van, was to be able to zip into the town centre, park and go to a couple of shops and a bank, then pop int a supermarket. Parking a car sized van is fine, you don’t need to worry about height restrictions on car parks etc. Trying to get a Transit into most town centre car parks isn’t going to work. Same with multi-stores where these vans are too tall.

Are the bigger vans more fuel efficient? No they aren’t. Had we wanted a Transit sized van, guess what sweetcheeks; We’d have hired one. You have not given us a complimentary upgrade, you have fobbed us off with something not really fit for purpose, but something we didn’t ask for.

 

Complimentary Upgrades Defined.

When you check into a flight and are told we’ve upgraded you to Business Class – That is an upgrade.

When you arrive at your hotel to be informed, your double room booking has been upgraded to a suite –  Yes, that is an upgrade.

Collect your hire car and are told the Audi A3 you booked has been upgraded to an A5 then that is an upgrade too.

You get the drift here, these are nice surprises, they put a smile on your face and make you feel happy.

Being told the small van you booked isn’t available, so instead here are the keys to your bigger Ford Transit – NOT AN UPGRADE!

 

Sort Your Shit Out Hertz.

If I wanted to hire a 16 seater minibus, to drive mates to an event or the airport, booked it months in advance and at the time of collection I’m told, sorry we only have a 52 seater coach available – What use is that?

The idea of booking in advance is to get a good price, but more importantly to ensure you have booked what you need, for the dates you need. You pay there and then, so the hire company have your funds, so they are responsible for delivering the ordered product.

This is not the first time this has happened when we have hired and prepaid for van hire. This is not good enough, especially on bookings made in advance like this. Let’s get this straight – You did not upgrade us, you fobbed us off with something not what we wanted because you screwed up and couldn’t supply what we had paid for.

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McCrap, Oui.

We are in France, the options for breakfast are  €20 each at the hotel for a continental buffet with a bit of bacon and an egg as the cooked option. Screw that, living in Spain we get breakfast out for  €3 each, for orange juice, coffee and a tostada. So looking online we find this bakers/sandwich place a 5 minute drive away. Looks like a Greggs in France we thought. We check out of the hotel, jump in the car and off we go. We find the badly signposted place, and end up parking in the shopping centre and walking there. In the queue, we realise it’s take out only – Not a problem.

We then notice the drinks range is rather limited. They offer zero drinks, neither hot nor cold. Now I cannot focus without a coffee, so this was a kick in the balls. Instead, we ordered a butty for lunch and paid, then left.

McDonalds In France

As we were in the car, cases etc all packed and we were kind of  ‘on the road’, we decided to try find somewhere to have breakfast. In the distance was the golden arches, so my better half said ” let’s go to McDonalds, we know they serve coffee”. Parked in the car park, walked into the new Bordeaux place and it’s an on screen ordering system.

€5 for a breakfast consisting of 2 drinks and 2 food items, hey let’s give this a try. I opted for Orange Juice to start, Coffee as the drink. The main food item was a bacon, cheese and egg burger and the follow on item was a beef and bacon burger. We paid, came to a grand total for the both of us of  €10. We were number 10 on the order display, top of the list so we stood and waited.

Service With No Smile

And waited and waited and while we waited we watched the young female server who was clearly not a happy bunny. She stomped about, shrugged her shoulders (in the French style, when they are not happy), pulled a face as long as the Maginot Line and everything that she handled she slammed onto the counter or into the bag for the customers orders.

She was also taking orders it seemed for the drive thru, which didn’t improve her attitude. We saw her colleague who was a guy in his twenties, preparing the burgers, taking them off the tray, wrapping them and placing them into the metal holding racks, ready for her to bag into orders.  Now this should have been so damn straight forward, but NO. She then had to open up each and every burger, check what it was, then rewrap it before completing the order for the customer.

 

She place a tray on a counter, added a couple of juices, added the hot coffee I ordered and a water and tea bag for her indoors. Then she wandered off. Hey this might be ours I thought, after waiting 16 minutes. But she went to deal with a guy wanting a coffee at the coffee counter. Then she went to deal with a drive through order, before coming back to the counter we were waiting at. Well we waited, she bagged up another order ( again not ours ), so we asked what was happening, as number 10 was no longer on the display board.

A shrug of the shoulders, then words with the guy and she then flounced off, leaving us standing there like a couple of spare parts. A couple of minutes later she is back. Burgers are all opened, checked then tossed onto the tray. The said tray was slid in our direction until I said, I want hot coffee.

So she opens the lid, sticks her fingers into both cups, mutters something then walks off, muttering even more. She then returns and slides these 2 hot drinks across in our direction.

 

I don’t like McDonalds at the best of times, it is crap. It’s the food you eat at 2am after 20 pints when you find the local kebab shop or curry house is closed. Aside from that, when it comes to eating eggs, unless they are scrambled, I want a runny yolk. Poached, boiled, fried they need to be runny. So imagine my surprise, when this fresh made McBreakfast arrived and the egg was cold and hard. Not to worry, at least I had my bacon and beef burger to look forward to. Well, you know how these appear as images on the menu and display……. They look nothing like this.

 

 

 

Yes that was the sorry state of my burger. The bun was soggy, the filling was cold, this was how my food arrived, after being prepared minutes earlier.

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Makes Me Sick

Yes another rant, you bet your arse this is a rant. Had that been one of my relatives and I was also on the train, trust me I would have dragged one of these arseholes out of their seat.

What is wrong with society today? You really want to know? There’s no need for me to spell it out for you, this image speaks volumes.

 

This is what is wrong, the self-centred morons, who have zero manners nor respect for their elders. This person is clearly in need of a seat, but does she get one?

What Is Wrong With These People?

Do they really need to be told, it’s the polite and proper thing to give up their seat to an elderly person (especially one who looks like she struggles physically)? Instead, they sit there listening to some crap music, oblivious to the old woman. Or are they oblivious? I think it’s more like I don’t care about her, I have my seat, I’m alright Jack.

Who do you think would have a better chance stood, holding onto the rail if the train had to break suddenly? The younger people listening to music, or the frail older people? This could be one of your relatives in this situation. Your grandparent, great aunt or even your neighbour. Where is the respect from these clowns sitting there? What makes them think it is correct to act in this manner?

Would they also leave a heavily pregnant woman standing? Or a parent with a young baby? A person on crutches or a blind person, what about them?

Where does this remarkable act of selfishness actually end? I wonder if it was their relative who got on at the last stop, would they leave them to cling on and stand? Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that was the case.

 

Priority Seating

The signs are clear enough, easy enough to understand so where’s the problem? It’s the lazy morons who are too self-centred, don’t care about other people. Well, let me tell you sunshine, one day that will be you or one of your loved ones. So do not come moaning about how people treated your friend, your relative. What goes around, comes around.

 

It’s not just on the trains, I have seen this bullshit in places such as airports, where able-bodied people are happy to take priority seating in the waiting areas. Even worse are the idiots who are happy to lay across 3 or 4 seats, with their eyes closed when there’s a clear shortage of seating.

‘I’m alright Jack’ -NO, you are not, you are a total prick and nothing more.

Makes My Piss Boil Rating out of 10 = 9.8

 

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Motorbike Rental Phuket Idiots

It’s 33 degrees, 2pm so the blazing sun is at it’s hottest and trying to undertake on the hill is Billy The Brit, the dickhead on his moped. How do we know he’s British? Because he’s the only dicksplash wearing flipflops, Union Jack shorts, no tee shirt, no helmet oh and no suncream. He’s not the only one, but at least some do bother with their helmet.

motorbike rental phuket dickhead moped riders

Motorbike Rental Phuket

It’s easy, cheap and can be a fun way to get around the island for sure. Have insurance, wear a helmet and don’t act like a helmet. Seriously you knobhead, hunching over the handlebars isn’t going to get your 18 stone of relaxed muscle up the hill any faster. You’ve got a misfiring 50cc put-put moped and you are not streamlined enough to get past a snail let alone a 2000cc minibus with 3 people in. Hopefully, you’ve seen the van pulling out from the side road ahead into the filter lane, or hopefully not. Maybe Darwin might want you back?

 

So why do the tourists feel the need to ride like total retards? To impress the girls? To impress their mates? Their mates are just as moronic as they are, so instead of 1 idiot on his moped, topless and helmetless, you get 7 of them, 4 abreast sat at the traffic lights, in the fast lane! Yeah, the local sat in his BMW behind them, looks ever so impressed. More so when the lights change, one idiot stalls his moped and is almost rear-ended by the young guy in the M3 BMW.

Notice the white line?

Next was the ginger idiot we came across who was sat with a helmet on, his whispy ginger beard showing. He was wearing his fake Ray Bans and had his young girlfriend clinging on for dear life behind him. Now we’re in the minibus, travelling about 40mph until we have to slam the brakes on thank to this ginger twat. All the mopeds who are on the inside of us are riding to the left of the white line at the side of the road. It’s wide enough to take a couple of mopeds side by side when the locals are on the road. But no, not this prick. He’s determined to sit on the main road, where the cars, the minibuses, the coaches and lorries all thunder along. Not him, he’s spluttering along at a steady, eyewatering 15-20 mph. I’m not sure if he’s ever ridden a bike with an engine before, or more importantly with a passenger on the back but this isn’t the time nor place to learn. Get off the road you idiot and get a taxi, a tuk-tuk or wait for a mate to drive you to where ever you want to go.

Think You Can Ride?

You can see, even with an untrained eye who are the experienced riders. Who are comfortable on their bikes. These are the people who look at ease, are more than happy to jinx in and out of traffic. The young females look comfortable, almost laid back, unlike the tourist girls who some look petrified as they ride along.

Since my first visit to Thailand, when I saw a family of 6 on a moped on the outskirts of Bangkok, it’s amazed me how at home these people are on 2 wheels. This was ( I swear on my cats life ) dad as the rider, mum sat behind with 2 kids sat in between them. On the fuel tank, holding onto the handlebars was say a small child of 3 maybe and mum was holding a large bucket in which was a smaller still child. Talk about the family going out together. Out in Phuket, the most was 5, so once again dad as the main man, mum sat behind but they had the 3 small kids wedged between both their bodies.

 

The Thai people seem to have this awareness when on the mopeds, they don’t take the risks that tourists do. Granted many don’t wear helmets either but that’s their choice. What I do find funny is when you see a rider with a helmet attached to the bike, or even held in their hand, yet not on their head……

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Nandos Grooves – Where Are The Chillies?

I NEED A GLASS OF WATER – My Arse.

So you know I like spiced food, plain just doesn’t do it for me. If it’s not spicy, then just keep it away from me. Anyway, Nandos is well known for it’s chicken outlets and the range of sauces they also sell. When I saw they did a range of crips, I just had to try them out.

Now when it’s advertised on the packet as ” I NEED A GLASS OF WATER “, then it sounds like this is a hot, spicy bite to eat. That being the case, I went out and bought a packet.

 Yes granted these are rated a ‘Medium’, but who on earth needs water with a medium spiced food? Seems to be there’s medium and there’s medium. In this case the medium were more like extra mild,without any taste.

I don’t mind a crisp being not spicy, if it’s just a crisp. These were just like eating cardboard though. They had ridged texture and that was all. Tastewise there was nothing at all. Not even at the bottom of the packet, where sometimes you get all the flavoured residue. Not here, there was nothing.

Genuine African Birds Eyes Chillies.

Really?  Where? Not in my fucking packet.

Think this packet I bought had missed out on the production line. I’ve had more flavour from Walkers Ready Salted ( and I prefer Seabrook crisps). What disappointed me more was the fact that the wording here also implied flavour and spice, none of which were evident. Shame really as these aren’t the cheapest crisps on the market.

Now the fact that these were bland, tasteless and in my humble opinion just trading on the Nandos brand name, was just one of the problems.

You can get away with poorer quality product, from time to time. After all people release products that don’t sell well. Think back to Sir Alan Sugar and his Amstrad computers, where he decided to ignore the industry standard 3.5″ disks and he went with 3″ disks instead. They went down as well as the Titanic after hitting an iceberg. Sometimes just a brand name isn’t enough to make a good product. Or in this case to make a poor product become good. What got my attention even more was the arrogant tag line on the Customer Care part of the packaging.

Oh Dear Me

Whoever thought this up needs to find a different job. If you are selling a great product, that is faultless, then yes you can be as arrogant as this. Yes it’s tongue in cheek ( or so I hope so ) but it’s total bullshit. We know if we need to report fly tipping we report to the local council. What about the crap I just ate? Do I bother contacting Nandos or Trading Standards?

Forget trying to be funny with your comments and instead improve the crap you’re peddling to paying customers.

Would I recommend this product?  Not a chance

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Black Friday Madness & Sadness

Gunman Dead And 2 Wounded

Including 12-year-old girl out shopping in Alabama mall, get caught up in a shooting incident. According to police, “The incident at the Riverchase Galleria in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover started with a fight between an 18-year-old and the 21-year-old gunman”.

 

Now we all like a bargain, people look forward to the Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend to spend, spend, spend hoping to grab that massive discount. But when you see the news clips of fights and punch-ups in stores, then you wonder if this has all gone that little bit too far?

We used to see the BBC news in the 1980/90s showing Boxing Day sales, where people used to camp outside their favourite store in the freezing cold for 3 days to get the fur coat at half price. Or the rush as the doors to Harrods opened and the pushing and shoving that took place. This though is nothing compared to some of the scenes seen in years more recent, including the Tesco Batley Black Friday punch up, which was filmed by staff from the upper floor.

What did a 12 year old do wrong to deserve to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time resulting in her being shot?

Although not life threatening, this young girls life will never be the same again.

Hoover police engaged the gunman, the outcome he was shot and killed, by law enforcement officers.

 

If you want to shop on Black Friday, it’s really much easier and a whole lot safer to do it from home, shopping online from the safety of the internet.

I’ve bought a few bits from Amazon UK and you can see all the deals here. I haven’t ever enjoyed nor wanted to go out into the crowds, I prefer to shop online. Only exception usually is when I want clothes and want to make sure they items fit correctly.

 

What’s The Rush?

Deals, deals and more deals. What has made Blackfriday so popular?

I read a great article here about avoiding panic buying. People need to realise that some of the offers are only saving a quid on a £50 product, over the usual discounted prices.

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Jack Reacher Brought Up To Size!

This isn’t a rant, more of a pat myself on the back post. Nice to see the Beeb confirming my thoughts here.

“Reacher is described as 6ft 5in tall with hands the size of dinner plates. Cruise is 5ft 7in.”  reported via the BBC yesterday, Lee Child admitted Cruise lacked the physicality…. You don’t say?

So instead of this bringing someone down to size, it’s good that it’s been realised Reacher needs bringing up to size!

Anyway, as much as I adore reading, I’ve just gotten into listening to books. Great for keeping me entertained while travelling or even to listen to in the background while doing other things.

Join Audible for just £3.99/month. Offer available until 14th December 2018.

So if like me you like to keep entertained and not need to venture out to the cinema or wherever, then Audible is one option for sure.

 

Going back to Jack Reacher, instad of rolling out more movies, the next phase is more of a tv series. This could actually be a great move, when you think they did this with the Jack Ryan character, from the writer Tom Clancy.

You’ve probably seen the films such as Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games etc. : ‎Alec Baldwin‎; ‎Harrison Ford‎; ‎Ben Affleck are amongst the people to play the leading role in these movies, the next way forward was a tv series. John Krasinski playing Ryan this time around, which I found a decent Amazon Prime viewing opportunity. I’m actually looking forward to series 2 of Jack Ryan!

 

Will Reacher make a great tv spin off? Yes in all honesty the potential is there without a doubt. Naturally this depends on who is cast as the lead role ( hopefully they’ll be over 6ft tall ) and who directs this. With Krasinski being the right sort of height, he could be a potential Reacher. Chris Hemsworth is another actor who fits the bill. Depending on budget a third option could be Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who has the build and presence.

 

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FLS Does Battle in Lidls

We know Fat Lad Says is here to educate and inform you lot but we can’t help but also rant about the day’s irritations and WTF moments.

So I go into Lidls, yeah I know but it’s cheap and their feta stuffed chillies are something else, grab a few things and head for tills. I can’t help but let this little smirk cross my face as I claim my place in the shortest queue, just two women in front of me. There I am thinking I’m soon going to be home with a beer in my hand and be sat by the pool for a chilled out Friday afternoon but no. As the assistant throws their shopping down the belt attempting to break some kind of land speed record they stand there and watch. Yep, they just watch each item bleeping past them.

Anyone who’s been to Lidls knows that you have to so this crazed maniac thing of chucking stuff in bags before the next item gets aimed towards you. You know you have to be packed up before they turn to you with that sadistic grin and announce the total while they watch you throw four pints of milk into the bag right on top of a loaf of bread, satisfied in the knowledge that when you get home you’ll have a bag of crumbs to try and fit into the toaster.

But the women in front of me, they just stand there and watch each item as it careers down the conveyor belt not just once but they both do it so by the time my stuff is within the assistant’s grasp there is nowhere for it to go, both sides of the belt are full of their shopping. The assistant turns and grins in my direction, this is her moment, this is the time she’s been waiting for all week. She picks up the 4 pinter and throws it towards their organic eggs, my four pack of chocolate mousses collides with their natural yogurt and then with a final flourish she eyes the 4 cans of beer and debates for a moment whether to fling them down with a well-practised flick of the wrist or whether to go for the full arm push. They land unceremoniously on top of a punnet of strawberries, the contents now looking more like something you’d see dripping down an ear removed head in a Tarantino movie.

I debate swopping a few things over in the general chaos but organic yoghurt versus chocolate mousse and beer? Yeah maybe not. I’m out of the door by the time they’ve come out of shock and are busy discussing what to do with the strawberry puree now leaking from the bag.

Moral Of This Story

Fat Lad Says “if you can’t stand the pace of Lidls, do us all a favour and head over to Waitrose”

Makes My Piss Boil Rating – 7/10

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