Midders

Would you rather

a) Be fat?

or

b) Die of lung cancer at 40?

 assuming there is no c) I guess.

 Nice and cheery I know!

You know the thing about The Apprentice that bugs me more than anything else, the bunch of smug ill informeds that think they are clever by slating Sir Alan Sugar, saying his (Amstrad) brand is crap therefore why does he deserve respect, and that "he doesnt know what he is talking about."

He doesnt know what he is doing? He is recruiting for his company free of charge, he is engendering MASSES of free publicity for both himself and his company, increasing his business turnover by a massive percentage thanks to the TV income, (of which he is donating a percentage to charity, this increasing his profile further).

Those same people that say "he doesnt know what he is talking about" sat there and watched the entire program, in order to critise. I am sure that Sir Alan would be over the moon. They may as well set up a direct debit to Amstrad. They would never buy the products, but who cares, a sale is a sale!

They may also not realise that despite Amstrad hardly being a household name nowadays, in its day, Amstrad was the Apple of today. It didnt do much (my watch probably has more capabilities than the first Amstrad PCs) but in their day the brand was revolutionary as it made computers useable.  

Yet Sir Alan Sugar is stupid isnt he. A complete and utter fool with his 800 million pound company and his tv income and his royalties, his rolls royce and one of the most watched programs on British tv at the moment and his daily increase in personal wealth. I bet he is green with envy wishing he had the business acumen and insight of some of his critics....

Dear sir,

I would like to make the following complaints regarding the commitment to customer service that your website advertises.

Whilst I understand that at certain times it will be unavoidable to queue while waiting for an operative, I have tried calling at varying times of the day, and I have not once been able to speak to anyone in less than 40 minutes. I do not have a landline I therefore have to make these extremely lengthy calls on a mobile. Around 50% of the time when I do finally get connected to a Norwich Union employee their level of English is so bad that I feel inclined to hang up and retry in the hope of getting someone that I can actually understand, were it not for the fact that that would involve another 40 minute wait.

However, moving away from the frustration of not being able to speak to someone in a reasonable length of time, I would like to discuss my individual facts of my case. My not at fault "accident" occurred on 27 January 2007. I phoned NU, confident that everything would be taken care of, and made a claim. As my policy includes a courtesy car, I was told that a separate company would deal with this, and that they would call me personally that day.

They did not call me that day (Friday), I therefore took out an hour from my day and called Norwich Union at 12pm Saturday to find out what was happening. They told me that there was nothing they could do as my car was "driveable" .I would like to point here that driveable is not the same as road worthy in the eyes of the law and therefore this effectively left me without a car until after the weekend despite the fact that I pay a premium on my policy to ensure that in the event of an accident I can always be provided with a courtesy car but that they would..."send an email" to the garage for me as the garage would be closing at 1pm and due to the legth of time spent getting through it was now 12.45pm. I asked whether it would not be more expedient in light of the time to phone, rather than email but your employee said it would not be possible for her to phone. As I insisted, she did gave me the garages number should I wish to try calling myself. So I did, only to discover garage doesn't accept incoming calls. I do not know whether the girl that gave me this number was aware of this fact, as I had lost the will to live sufficiently not to be able to face another 40 minute queuing marathon.

At this point I would like to reitterate that my not at fault accident was on 27 January 2007. It is today 13 March 2007. I have just spent a further 49 minutes on the phone to your call centre trying to find out why I have not yet received back the £320 excess which I had to pay to get my car fixed despite the fact that my vehicle was driven into whilst parked. After a 35 minute wait to speak to someone I was asked whether I had received any correspondence from the solicitors. I answered no. They then transferred me to said solicitors. They asked me if I had received any correspondence from them. I said no. They told me that I should therefore speak to Norwich Union as until NU has sent a fax to them I can not be processed on their systems. Apparently this is why almost 2 months have passed with no one in any hurry to recover my £320 excess or concerned about the further £100 or so I am running up in phone bills. Needless to say they suggested I spoke to someone from Norwich Union and asked them to send this fax.

 (As a side note, and as an ‘interesting' experiment I have just phoned the Norwich Union line for new customers wishing to take out a policy to test whether all callers are forced undergo a 50 minute test of nerve. Surprisingly, my call was answered almost instantly, seeming only to suggest that Norwich Union places more importance on introducing new customers than it does on satisfying their existing ones.)

According to the solicitor I have just spoken to this really should not have been a complicated case. As my vehicle was parked there is very little doubt over liability.  I really therefore am do not understand why, after nearly TWO MONTHS Norwich Union have still not managed to send the vital fax to the solicitors and why I have just had to make another 49 minute call to verify this.

I await your response

 Regards

This guy was lonely and so he decided life would be more fun if he had a pet. So he went to the pet shop and told the owner that he wanted to buy an unusual pet.

After some discussion, he finally bought a centipede which came in a little white box to use for his house. He took the box back home, found a good location for the box and decided he would start off by taking his new pet to the pub to have a drink.

So he asked the centipede in the box, "Would you like to go down TheQueen's Head with me and have a beer?"

But there was no answer from his new pet. This bothered him a bit, but he waited a few minutes and then asked him again, "How about going to the pub for a drink?"

But again, there was no answer from his new friend and pet. So he waited a few minutes more, thinking about the situation. He decided to ask him one more time; this time putting his face up against the centipede's house and shouting,

"HEY, in there! Would you like to go to The Queen's Head and have a drink with me?"

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"I heard you the first time! I'm putting my F***ing shoes on."

I need to sell my car.

There are some facts to consider;

1) I have a 5 year finance agreement of which i am 1 year through

2) The car is worth 1.5k less than i still owe on it.

I presume i cant sell a car that is under finance? So what am I supposed to do, does anyone know? Im not really likeing the idea of taking out a loan to pay off the finance and then repaying the 1.5k discrepancy instead...