What became of the tea leaf?

It’s been a while since I have posted here, but been so busy nothing really worth talking about of great interest and up to today nothing to make me rant about either.

Ok, today I feel I’ve been duped and for how long I don’t yet know, you see, in my world of relative normal life I was under the impression that tea bags contained tea leaves! Is that such a strange thing to think or even expect, am I out of order to even suggest the fact that tea leaves should be an integral part of the tea bag, well so it seems, my impression no matter how normal is wrong.

This morning after unpacking a box of  PG tips, I had one break on me, not a usual occurrence but luckily it happened over the sink, to my horror the contents were in effect a brown fine dust, not tea leaves by any stretch of the imagination.

So yes I feel not only duped but completely hoodwinked by a brand I have drunk from choice for best part of 30 years and boy do I get through a lot of tea bags.

Some years ago, in fact was about 14 years ago, I was offered a cup of tea made with PG Tips granules, I declined and said give me a proper tea bag, any way the friend who made the tea watched me intently while a sipped at my favourite brew and asked if the tea was ok, I said yes.

She had made it with PG Tips tea granules and to be honest it tasted the same as a tea bag cuppa, but it never swayed me to convert nor to try it again.

The brown dust still sitting on my sink reminds me of those granules although obviously crushed with some kind of  steam roller as no hint of any granule remains and they were also brown, you expect this of some cheap and nasty brand from the pound shop but not from PG Tips which, up until today was my king of tea

Tea bags did contain tea leaves and tea leaves are black, am I right.

Maybe a year of so ago we had other tea bags at work and one of those broke, but that did contain what we all love and know as tea leaves, so when did that all change?

I’ve just read the box of the PG Tips, it says and I quote “We created the ingeniously designed pyramid bag because the unique shape gives the tea more room to move, freeing the delicious taste of the tea leaves” What friggin tea leaves there’s not one single tea leaf in the crappy tea bag, just brown dusty shite.

Well PG Tips your secret is out and I’m not having it, so as of today I will never be using your brand again and to put it plainly so you get the message you have duped, deceived, tricked, hoodwinked, swindled, defrauded, cheated and double-crossed me into thinking this is real tea. It’s not and you have just lost another customer, along with many others once they read this.

I will be looking for a alternative, and the first thing I will be doing with each brand is ripping one apart to see what they contain.

Am I just becoming one of them?

You know, a grumpy old man.

Is it just me or has Facebook just become a place for fluffy cat pictures, random sayings and political agendas, Oh and not forgetting the spam posts and adverts, what happened to all the entertaining conversations we used to have?

I've been on there again tonight and see nothing worth commenting on or sharing.

They say you have to interact to get interaction but I believe that Facebook have messed things up so bad that it pretty well broken.

Once upon a time there was a young elf.......... sorry got side tracked.

Once upon a time Facebook was brilliant I loved it, I have never has massive lists of friends on there but as I have always said quality is better than quantity and in fact the comments and shares used to be great but now, well if I post something and can almost guarantee it will one of about ten people will like it and one of about five may comment, and its the same ones on every post, and that's on a good day, much of the time , nothing..........

I have heard the Facebook have somehow stopped your comments reaching those who you don't interact with as regular so this maybe the reason, in other words they are selecting who sees what you post, EPIC FAIL, I expect the only way I can change that is to interact with all 120 friends on my list every day, like that's going to happen, but instead the lack of response is slowly driving me away from the site, rather than me interacting more with it, since I have discovered Twitter and how it works I have had more interesting conversions with complete strangers than I now do on Facebook.

If it wasn't for the fact I had specialist pages on Facebook I may have already deactivated the account, but seriously, I have got to the point I no longer see a use for them.

The pages were set up to draw attention to various other blogs and websites and going by the stats for each site, and yes I do post on the pages regularly, with the exception of Facebook search bots checking out the links, little else shows from Facebook.

So the question is, can I do without Facebook, I'm beginning to think I can, would I be missed, I doubt it.

This is a fairly new blog, no it has no comments but then again I don't really care about that, this is somewhere for me to rant, if someone reads it, which they do, and it makes them laugh or at least think about the article then that's fine.

I also think that now there is so much crap being posted on the internet generally but Facebook has more than its share people just missed your point sometimes, like the post about Bee's I posted here and everywhere else including Facebook, I don't often get wound up about something that often despite what you may think, but the bee issue was important to me, and although again no comments here the article was viewed by many, Posted it four times on Facebook and got one response and one share, so despite that my Facebook is full of people that 'Care' about the world we live in, I wonder how many actually got off their arses and signed the petition? no I don't know but guessing very few.

Maybe I'm just having a bad day but seem to be losing faith in the power of the internet a people in general.

Maybe I'm using Facebook as the scapegoat where as in fact I just can't be asked with it any more.

Maybe I could write a blog later in the year called, ' How I left Facebook and survived' :)

Or maybe I will end up deleting this blog as well, have you ever felt your leading two lives, one in the real world and another on the internet, I do, and wonder if life could be a bit more straight forward without the internet and mobile phones, so maybe I'm just harping after the good old days as to how things were or I am just becoming a grumpy old man!

Nights drawing in

Well despite being an outspoken person or sometimes totally random, so far this week there is nothing that inspires me to write something even remotely ranty or random, it's been a quiet week to this point but that can all change at the drop of a hat, speaking of hats they don't make them like they used to, after having a fly buzzing around my head and hitting it with my Santapod baseball cap the adjuster on the back broke although that is more than likely the heavy hit on the window frame that caused it.

Other than that and the XBox making a god awful racket, likened only to one of those petrol model aeroplanes when I started it up yesterday for the first time in a year not much else has annoyed me, the Xbox got a good slap and now all is well.

So today I leave my post short and a picture of sunset outside the front.

To bee or not to bee

It’s not often I get on my soapbox but something I have found out has forced me to speak out, now I don’t get political , I tried that once before and had my website removed, long story for another time, and as far as I’m concerned they are all as bad as one another.

Neither do I moan much about the banks or big business, because I work for myself and realise that everyone has to make a profit, so to an extent can see where they are coming from, but what really gets my goat and puts my back up is total disregard to everyone and everything around them for the sake of profit.

Some years ago I was continually putting down the big pharmaceutical companies for their total disregard to everyone and everything around them for the sake of profit so this could be a recurring theme, oh and those articles got removed too.

So why moan about the pharmaceutical companies? About six years ago now, I had a heart attack, not an issue now but at the time it was a bit of a shock, anyway long story short, I was in the hospital for two weeks, and when I was let out was given four lots of tablets with the advice I could end up taking these for the rest of my life, oh joy.

I hated tablets anyway and always tried my best to manage without them including pain killers, three of the tablets were in effect Statins the other a tiny Asprin, within days if not hours I could barely move, it seemed all my joints were aching, my elbows, wrists knees and ankles all felt like they were ninety years old or more, I was 49 at the time.

After two weeks of this I went to the Doctor for my regular check up and at this point to get the short distance from the car to the surgery I had to lean on my partners shoulder, if I had a stick I would of used it.

I questioned the Doctor about the tablets and said that unless she could give me a reason why I’m taking them and what for I was going to stop them totally.

She couldn’t answer, all I got was “Well I can’t force you to take them, it’s up to you what you do” Not you can’t do that because they do this or that, nope just it was up to me what I did, all this tells me is I didn’t need them in the first place.

Within a few days of stopping all the tablets I was beginning to move again, the pain receded after only a few days and within the week found myself pottering about the house and garden, two weeks and I was back at work and never had a problem since, why is that?

Further research on Statins, show they are very profitable for the companies that produce them and most Doctor have a big long list of thing they are suitable for, so they are widely prescribed and making the pharmaceutical companies fortunes, do they care about the side effects, do they hell, since then I have heard so many stories about side effects of Statins I’m surprised they still offer them, oh hang on, it would hurt their profits if they withdrew them.

Now I’m not condoning you stop any medicines or pills you are taking, I’m just bloody minded and believe everything should have a purpose, if not I don’t partake.

Now on today’s hit list is chemical companies, in fact two in particular and I will be naming and shaming them for their total disregard to everyone and everything around them for the sake of profit.

This is all about bees, yes bees, now unless you have had your head buried in the sand or up your backside for the last few years or so you maybe aware there is a problem with the bees dying off, you may also be aware without bees we are stuffed big time.

You didn’t? So what was it like with your head up your……….ok lets not go there.

The long and short of it is the bees have been mysteriously dying off all over the world and there have been documentaries about it, now I have always wanted bees and never seemed to get around to setting a hive or two up on the farm, so maybe I could possibly a bit more aware of the problem I don’t know but the fact remains the bees are still dying which without them hardly any crops will get germinated, nothing much will grow and of course no honey, we rely on bees far more than you think, check out and Google it.

Today I found an article saying one particular company Bayer has just sued the European Commission to overturn a ban on the pesticides that are killing millions of bees around the world, well you can imagine my horror, how can a major company be so stupid, by this action alone the company are in fact saying “Up yours world” all for the sake of profit, I truly find it hard that a company such as Bayer can be such a bunch of morons.

The article I found I will also quote here and follow it with a petition link, I have been actively pushing this as we need everyone to tell these so called big corporations that we don’t have our heads so far up our backside that we don’t care or notice.

From the article I read;

Wow. Bayer has just sued the European Commission to overturn a ban on the pesticides that are killing millions of bees around the world. A huge public push won this landmark ban only months ago -- and we can't sit back and let Big Pesticide overturn it while the bees vanish.

Bayer and Syngenta, two of the world's largest chemical corporations, claim that the ban is "unjustified" and "disproportionate." But clear scientific evidence shows their products are behind the massive bee die-off that puts our entire food chain in peril.

Just last month, 37 million bees were discovered dead on a single Canadian farm. And unless we act now, the bees will keep dying. We have to show Bayer now that we won't tolerate it putting its profits ahead of our planet's health. If this giant corporation manages to bully Europe into submission, it would spell disaster for the bees.

The dangerous chemical Bayer makes is a neonicotinoid, or neonic. Neonics are soaked into seeds, spreading through the plant and killing insects stopping by for a snack. These pesticides can easily be replaced by other chemicals which don’t have such a devastating effect on the food chain. But companies like Bayer and Syngenta make a fortune from selling neonics -- so they’ll do everything they can to protect their profits.

The EU banned these bee-killers this past May, after a massive public campaign and a clear scientific finding from the European Food Safety Authority that neonics pose huge risks to bee populations. Bayer fought against the ban every step of the way, using tactics taken from Big Tobacco -- pouring millions into lobbying and fake science to stop decision-makers from taking action.

For the rest of the article and the petition go to the link below, thanks for taking the time to read this and please act too.

http://action.sumofus.org/a/bayer-bees-lawsuit/?sub=fb 

Getting bogged down with basics

Being ill is not the best way of spending a Wednesday morning but seemed to of had some kind of stomach bug, the idea of being to far from a toilet kept me in the house most of the day, but Thursday I was much better, thanks for asking.

It’s not like the last time a few months back, same scenario, bad stomach regular visits to the bathroom, you know the type of thing, you spend ages in there to a point your stomach actually begins to feel better you finally emerge and walk about ten paces and quickly swing round and return to the small room once again, in my case I knew every single mark in the painted finish on the door in front of me as I spent so much time staring at it.

After about six visits in the space of an hour, it was time to leave the bathroom yet again, turned and flushed and to my horror the pan filled with water, right to the top.

You imagine the water coming up and over the edge but it didn’t it stopped just short of a murky waterfall over the edge, I watched as the water slowly subsided back to a normal level, hoping whatever caused it was gone, so flushed it again to check agggh it filled up again, same level same result slowly subsiding.

I found myself screaming at the toilet, I tend to do this, abuse inanimate objects, it usually makes me feel better, but this time I meant it” Why now of all the times to block you stupid toilet why now” You could probably add a few choice expletives to make what I said more accurate but you get the gist.

The things that go through your mind at that time beggers belief, I knew I didn’t have long before I required it’s services once again and now it’s blocked and the only one in the house, I quickly went outside to find the access cover and get my drain rods from the shed, but even after being here three years I didn’t know where the cover was, I searched and searched, nothing……

The pipe was obvious and old cast iron but there didn’t seem to be anywhere it went to other than into the concrete, now what?

I went back inside and hoped I could flush it without it filling up again, nope it was still blocked. At this point half an hour had past and was eyeing up a bucket in the yard just in case for a back up plan.

The bathroom is on the ground floor but the pipe has a vent stack pipe outside with a bend in it as it rises above the roof line, in desperation I went and got a lump hammer from the shed and hit the cast iron pipe right on top of the bend and smashed a hole, with my torch I could see right down the pipe, well actually I couldn’t because it was blocked, with my trusty drain rods and wearing lovely red rubber gloves I started rodding down the hole in the pipe, with more pushing and twisting I was getting hotter, the buckets in the yard were looking more likely, then all of a sudden the rods moved down about six inches.

After a bit more poking and prodding  I went and tried to flush again, this time the water went away as it should, the sense of relief was more than you would believe.

The pipe has since been wrapped in Gaffer tape just in case I need to do it again, I never did find an access cover and don’t think there is one.

The moral of this story is don’t take your toilet for granted, you may never know when you will need to rely on it.

Testing my patience

Today has been a test of patience to the extreme and I lost, it has turned me from my normally calm ‘What will be, will be’ attitude to a raving loony bent on revenge and verbal assaults to anyone daring to get in my space, luckily only my computer, the cats and various other inanimate objects heard any of my outburst mainly consisting of every swear word and cussing I could think of in one long loud sentence.

The reason can be summed up in one word, technology.

All I wanted to do is report a fault on my telephone landline, have you tried getting hold of a big company? Is there anyone out there?

Yesterday everything was working fine until about lunch time when I went to make a phone call and the line had no dialing tone, it sounded like an open line couldn’t call out, and although it would ring when I phoned it with my mobile albeit intermittently, it wouldn’t answer so getting hold of BT (British Telecom) was really important, I decided to try online and report the fault, it’s got to be easier then trying to get them by phone so found the section on their website and did my own fault check, impressed, it came back saying there was a fault, near the house and would get back to me in 24 hours.

Fine now I know that’s sorted a can get on with my day, I used my mobile for calls I had to make and the internet was working but somewhat slower.

Last night the internet connection seemed to get slower and slower, at one point I could almost go and make a cup of tea while each page was loading, not ideal.

This morning was much the same as lunch time approached and still no phone call or email from BT I decided to give them a ring from my mobile and got put in a queue, next thing was my mobile line went dead, realising I had run out of credit, no surprise by the amount of use it got yesterday, decided to top it up using my Visa card as I always do, now since October last year I have had a smart phone with touch screen, never really wanted one but I conceded as it meant I could receive emails, use sites like Ebay while I was away from base and a few other things, I went through a process I have done many times before, but today it wasn’t to be.

Seventeen times I had to restart the process because the touch screen kept entering the wrong number in the long card number then would ask me to start again, now the logic of the system is enter the long number, sixteen digits them enter the hash key but because the signal strengthen was at best weak, the times I did enter the number correctly, their machine was telling me I hadn’t, if I entered a wrong digit and went to back space, it's recorded message cut in saying "You have entered a number we don’t recognise" How does it know that? Why the hell do I need to enter the hash key if your automated system is checking each digit I enter, I stopped, with a string of abusive comments to the phone and the automated voice.

The next plan was to top up online, so found the T-mobile website, who is now part of the EE network, not that I wanted to be but like the banks, when one gets taken over you migrate to them without any consultation, I tried signing into the website but obviously wasn’t registered, I never used the online service, so went through all the procedure signing up and got into what was called ‘My T-mobile’ only to find that MY T-mobile’ is currently offline, aggghhhhhhhhhhh.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a link that said quick top-up Ah, I thought lets do that, again new screen really slow as internet still dragging it’s heels, so went through adding my details and as I wasn’t registered added card details, address details, checked it and hit send, nothing………

Well there was something, a short message saying I had entered incorrect details, where?

I scrolled down to find because I had entered a house name rather than a number it was adamant I was wrong and asked me to correct it, how, I don’t have a damn number you stupid website, I tried a few times but it wasn’t having it.

At this point I lost it, the tirade of abuse the computer got is even by my standards bad, it was at this point  forty years of working in the building trade and almost as long learning every cuss and swearword imaginable came out in one very long and loud sentence so much so I ran out of breath at the end, how I didn’t launch the monitor or smart phone, I will never know, all I could see was red, I was really and seriously fuming steam out of the ears.

And after venting out my anger on Facebook, walked away from the computer and went out in the garden to calm down, it didn’t work as I knew I still had to sort this out.

I made another cup of tea and looked at it a bit calmer, I know lets find my old mobile with buttons, recharge it and get it topped up that way, could I find it, could I hell.

Eventually after searching stupid places including under the cat, I found it and not where I remember putting it either, well it was last year, at my age I struggle to remember last week sometimes.

Now with my old phone on charge, it’s now just a waiting game, I did try the landline out of curiosity more than anything else, but still nothing.

An hour later it had enough charge so changed over the sim card from the not so smart, smart phone and started it up, phoned the network number and got the card details through without any silly messages or keying wrong digits, great, top up done, phoned BT on number I had on a bill and shock horror got through within a few minutes only to find out although the report test had been logged I hadn’t reported it as needing repair, hang on, so what about that bit that said we will be in touch in 24 hours? I could of so easily tore into this guy but thought better of it as he was offering to sort it out, only to tell me it could be the 1^st of October before it’s repaired, WHAT! That’s a week away…….

As you can tell it’s not been one of my better days, I still have no phone line and the internet is slow and I pay for a premium service.

In the mean time the smart phone has been consigned to the drawer in disgrace until I can either develop laser pin point accuracy with my digit pressing or I forgive it for being not so clever.

Lets hope the day improves now or at least tomorrow will be back to some kind of normality.