Gluten only promotions

When Dominos announced the decision to start providing gluten free bases this was an extremely welcomed statement, and although they were only willing at this stage to dip their toe in with just one size (small) I and many I spoke to were happy and confident that the size issue would be addressed if Coeliacs embraced the gluten free base proving it to be a good money spinner for Dominos.

I would also like to put it on record how impressed I was when I saw no extra change for the gluten free bases, this was and still is a rare treat when you’re not financially penalised for requiring a gluten free alternative.

Now for the moan.

Order once from Dominos and you will receive no end of promotions through your door and into your mailbox, and in general out of all the spam/junk/non requested material I receive a promotion for cheap(er) pizza is welcomed to some extent.

Unfortunately however one chink in their so far shining armour is that due to their own decision to only supply a small base, you can only partake in the deals that include the small range which is actually quite few as like any business they want to encourage larger orders.

The most recent offer to land with me was the ‘One Two Free’ promotion; in essence you order a large pizza and get two sides free. Maybe it was the wording or maybe it was the look of a warm pizza on the leaflet that done it for us but my wife and I felt compelled by our stomachs to call up and order.

I called my local branch and was told that the offer was only for large pizzas so we couldn’t order their gluten free range. At this point I extended a branch of hope and opportunity for them to use their customer service skills by asking if we could purchase two small gluten free bases and still get the deal, the answer “No”.

This was a poor decision for that employee to make, one because it left me hungry and disappointed, two because it cost the company an order and potentially future orders. It doesn’t even make financial sense for them, for example if we use the ‘Original Cheers & Tomato’ pizza the cost break down is such:

• Cost of large - £11.99
• Cost of small - £7.99

• Number of slices of a large – 10
• Number of slices of a small – 6

I would have paid £15.98 which is £3.99 more for the extra two slices, making those extras worth £1.99 (approx) which is actually 65p (approx) more than the cost of an individual slice.

IF they would have used commonsense and allowed this alteration to the offer they would now have two very satisfied customers who also felt valued, not to mention the extra wonga towards their targets and repeat business in the future.

To light a slight fuse I cannot imagine a company restricting potential sales in this way if the criteria for the food was based on a vegetarians requirement not to eat meat, so why does the quandary of just cooking two small bases cause them such a problem? I was hoping it was just poor staff training and once I raised this point they would promise to filter down to their staff to use discretion with promotions when Coeliacs call for an order.

Sadly Dominos response was to defend this decision by their staff and point to their T&Cs.

Yes I am grateful for more major players to finally see the potential profits of catering to the gluten free range, but I find it equally exasperating when they fail to really fulfil their potential letting money slip through their fingers.

I have used the term ‘Dietary Discrimination’ on Twitter to tweet my points about this issue, and I agree that discrimination is far too strong of a word to explain this situation, but I ask you is it right to cater to a group of people and have all the positive PR that comes with it, and then exclude them from promotions due to reason completely out of their control? Coeliacs didn’t ask for this disease and neither did they take the decision to invest just in small in gluten free bases.

In my opinion if you want our money earn it, don’t just flirt with us to get the hurrahs.

Rant over.

The first Full English I couldn’t stomach

I gave up writing on my blog a while back because I got bored and found something else to keep me entertained, however I need to post my hatred of channels 4's new adult cartoon Full English that aired last night in more than 140 characters.

Family Guy by Seth MacFarlane is an outstanding success, i love it, so I can absolutely understand the overwhelming temptation to try and copy some of their formula if you have been tasked with creating an 'English' animation series aimed at adults. But come on Channel 4, is this really the best you had on offer?......

The most annoying obvious Family Guy rip offs that didn’t work:

• Parody of a TV show. Full English did the show 'Skins' right at the beginning, almost the first thing you see, and it wasn’t funny, it wasn’t anything other than an instant disappointment and realisation the writers were obviously lacking in creativity that they had to start the show with a Family Guy rip off.
• Rich Father-in-law that dislikes his son-in-law. They literally lifted the Carter Pewterschmidt Peter Griffin relationship straight from Family Guy and defecated all over it, it was like watching someone copy in an exam but put all the answers in the wrong place.
• Stupid backward son. Chris Griffin, enough said. LAZY LAZY LAZY!!!!!
• Famous cameos. Due to the success of Family Guy celebrities are literally lining up to be on the show, even if Seth MacFarlane turns them into a complete psychopath (James Woods), but filling your show with UK celebrities just to try and gain a few cheap laughs because the main characters have no substance is weak and a clear sign the writers have the imaginative skills of a rotting lettuce.

Britain has always struggled to produce any animation that can go up against Americas best, yet we can do comedy, we can do satire better than any nation in the world, but as soon as someone is tasked with putting these words into a cartoons mouth we panic and produce absolute horse manure, and not even the good sort of manure you can use to make your veggies grown strong and humorous! why why why???..... off the top of my head the only animation for adults that we have produced that works is 'The Ricky Gervais Show' and that’s because all they have done is draw over a conversation between three extremely funny men.

For Channel 4 to allow this Full English crap on TV is a bigger scandal then George Entwistle not knowing about the Newsnight investigation. I will be watching the @ComedyOn4 twitter feed closely today hoping they use their 140 characters to say something along the lines of:

• #FullEnglish sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry
• #FullEnglish we know.... we are sorry. @SethMacFarlane please help us.
• #FullEnglish was just an elaborate @DerrenBrown experiment to see if a monkey with a typewriter could in fact write anything. Sorry

Mobile Application Toys

Fifth instalment of putting adverts on notice 

YAY, brilliant, have you seen these?? Here check out this version from Disney on YouTube

Basically you give your child a toy car but instead of them using their imagination and energy driving it around the floor, they sit next to screen and hold it flat barely moving their wrist! Cheers Disney, I was generally concerned that kids weren’t getting lethargic enough.

Not that long ago an older relative was telling me about their childhood and how they went out after breakfast to play and didn’t come home until dinnertime! now obviously this relative was quite old because in their day school, crime, and paedophiles weren’t yet invented making all day play far away from the home possible. But even in my youth we spent much of our time outside having fun rather than inside playing with ourselves.... hold on that doesn’t sound right... inside playing alone on a computer, yeah that’s better.

The western world appears to be aware of the problem because I have watched a number of documentaries on TV about the issue (yes I appreciate the irony of me moaning about kids being inactive and there I am watching TV, but I am no longer a child so therefore have earned the right to be lazy). However due the cash being spent on these toys of no imagination from parents thinking they being kind by giving their children what they think they want from the brainwashing marketing campaigns, the toy manufacturers will keep relentlessly providing them until we reach a time when I am an old man telling my grandchild "I remember the days when children had legs, and how babies were swaddled after birth in blankets rather than plugged into their Apple iLife".

Surely there is a way of combining smartphone, iPad style technology with active play? One of these companies is going to make an absolute mint when they have that eureka moment.... in fact, I have a few ideas myself, has anyone got Tim Cook's number?

Topless Pictures of Kate Middleton

are not on my blog, I hope the headline wasn’t misleading?

The biggest story on the BBC news website is ‘Royals' fury over topless photos’ now don’t get me wrong I do appreciates nice boobs, I have been a fan/slave to them for many years, but is it really a story worth so much attention?

End of the day she has breasts, most women tend to have them, and yeah you know what they could be a good pair, they could have been the thing that caught Prince Willy's eye in the first place, but is the fact she whipped them out on holiday and some reporter managed to keep his hand steady long enough to take some un-blurred pictures a good enough reason to make headlines around the world?

They might try and wrap it up by saying it’s an issue about privacy for our Royals yada yada yada, but the vast majority of people opening the story or searching Google for the images are men and some ladies purely looking to knock one out (or knock one in if your female) to pictures of her baps, and they couldn’t care less if there has been an intrusion into her privacy or not, they want to see God’s milk bottles, and they couldn’t be happier.

With everything happening in the world today did the BBC and other media outlets really need to make this their major story? Isn’t that a tad bit sad? I don't blame the horny people rushing for their zipper with delight because they are generally quite normal and simply reacting to our most basic of human needs, but playing up to them to improve sales or viewing figures to your website is lazy journalism at best and probably how some of you found your way to this page proving my point.

If the media of this country didn’t make a shit storm of these stories then the demand for them wouldn’t be so high. I'm sorry if Kate is upset that her chesticles are now in the public domain, but I really hope she turns round to the media and says "yeah I have tits whoop de doo Basil, why don't you nip over to Egypt and report on some REAL news"

Picture faked by adding a skin tone to her bikini and creating a pixelated blur.

No-Touch No-Point No-Need Soap Dispensers

Forth instalment of putting adverts on notice 

One of my wife’s biggest annoyances and for once she has a point.

Take this advert for example of the Dettol 'No Touch' Handwash System and let me break it down for you:

• 0:00 - 0:03 "Hands touch some germy stuff"

Agreed, this is why we wash our hands more often than any other area of our body unless you work at the Red Light District of Amsterdam and then I would imagine you might also wash another area of your body just as frequently.

• 0:10 "Fact: Your soap pump can harbour hundreds of bacteria"

And? I am just about to wash my hands so what does it matter? You could carefully rest some badger poo on the top of the dispenser it wouldn’t change a thing as your just about to wash your hands!!!

• 0:16 - 0:18 "It senses hands and dispenses soap"

Hardly Star Ship Enterprises technology is it? And the fact most soap pumps don’t have omnivore poop resting on them was the cost to develop this product really justified?

• 0:18 - 0:21 "Which kills 99.9% of bacteria"

So the product within the dispenser kills any germs that are on your hands? So touching the dirty pump wouldn’t have mattered in the slightest.....

• 0:25 - 0:30 "the Dettol 'No Touch' Handwash System, never touch a germy soap pump again"

If the advert didn’t finish at this point you would hear her say "the Dettol 'No Touch' Handwash System, never touch a germy soap pump again you gullible twat, and why you wasting your money on this pointless tat why not invest in our Rock Paper Scissors Dice Game"

Taps that come on and off by sensing hands reduce the chance of getting germs back on your hands after cleaning them, or maybe toilet doors that open and close automatically would help? But a soap dispenser that puts soap on your hands just before your about to use the soap and hot water to kill all the germs on your hands is just POINTLESS!!!!!! In fact next time I see one of these in anyone’s home I will empty the contents in the bin and replace it with a fine mixture of bodily fluids.

I know it can't be the easiest of tasks getting people excited about your product when it's just soap, and the development team were probably under a lot of pressure to come up with something revolutionary, but come on is this the best you can do Dettol? Let me help you with one idea, create a cheap dispenser for which you can add personalised messages to so that each time someone presses the pump it thanks them, or as my only real intention to having this option is for it say "I can't believe you touched that again, and all the way up to your knuckle, filth".

It doesn’t matter how pointless or dull your product is, don't abuse stupid people with meaningless products that aren’t required, just be creative like Al Harrington and his Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men.

Reacting to my children’s “games” a life lesson

I walked into my front room to see my son have one foot on the back of our sofa and the other on a free standing wooden chair that was slightly rocking. Around him was a wooden cabinet, a table, and various toys also with lots of wonderful hard edges to really hurt yourself on.......

So what did I do? Did I:

1. Rush over and calmly help him down
2. Rip open my shirt to reveal my superhero costume and fly to his rescue
3. Scream "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" in a load shocked/worried tone to startle him and increase his chances of falling

Of course it was 3.

Thankfully he kept his balance and I helped him down and tried to explain to a 4 year old why what he was doing was a risky game even if he was being Ben 10, which was of course about as productive as trying to teach Tank how to do equations. I walked out the room shaking my head at the foolishness of my own natural reaction.... I might as well have opened the door and shouted "BOO!!!"

I wonder how many people have crossed the road not looking only for an oncoming car to be hurtling towards them when someone shouts "watch out" making said person stop walking increasing the probability of the impact. You could shout "RUN" but then who runs on the command of strangers, you would still stop to see firstly what obnoxious person is trying to enforce exercise on you as you leisurely walk to your destination, and then further time would elapse as you realise your about to become road kebab and the instruction to run was actually meant to help (or was it mwhaha).

I know that intervening with silence is the way forward, I know this because I have watched enough superhero films. Superman for example doesn’t rescue the woman from a falling building by screaming like a 1960's hippie getting a bikini wax for the first time! No, he looks confident swoops in and bish bash bosh the woman is saved.

A child’s ignorance of danger and their enthusiasm of the game in hand is probably keeping them as safe as they can be from the obvious dangers that us old farts instantly identify as soon as we walk into the room to find our most precious creations swinging from the light shade trying to hook their feet under the curtain pole so they can hang upside down..... But next time this happens I will try my hardest to be option 'B' above

Getting Cross about them being cross about a cross

Religions in their purest forms seem quite magnificent and wondrous, but as with all things in life a section of mankind took this message and pissed all over it with selfish greedy desires so they can kill, rule, and be rich with the all mighty excuse that they were just innocently doing the Lords/Allah’s work.

But this blog post isn’t about religion itself, and whether religions are good, bad, stupid, clever, wise or foolish, it’s about what people should expect from others outside of their chosen religion. The BBC have kindly infuriated me.... sorry I mean informed me that 'Christians take 'beliefs' fight to European Court of Human Rights'.

To summarise the story briefly:

• Two Christians wanted to wear cross at work and weren’t allowed.
• Two Christians didn’t want to help/marry a gay couple got sacked.

The fact these people are Christians bares no meaning to why this pissed me off, they could be Muslim, Hindus, Buddhist, Sikhs, Rastafarians, spiritualists or any of the other major world religions and id have still felt just as annoyed. A belief is a belief, it is not grounded in any factual information so why should one persons set of beliefs be put before anyone else’s?

Having a belief in something can be beautiful, and if it helps you live a happier life and a kinder existence to those around you then hey it's a thumbs up from me! But if this belief causes conflict with your day to day general life then tough as that is your choice to hold those beliefs. I couldn't care less if you believed in the great and almighty power of the Teletubbies, if your employer does not think wearing a TV on your chest and an aerial on your head is acceptable work attire then you take it off or go get another job that does allow it.

I love tattoos, if I could then I would be covered from head to toe in them, and as my taste in tattoos tends to be Demonic/Goth id probably look quite scary to some people, but so what, if they judge me on first impressions without getting to know me then I’d rather not know them anyway. However my point for bringing tattoos into this is that the only two reasons I am not a walking piece of gothic art is:

1. I don't have the money to cover myself in Tattoos just yet
2. I would probably lose my job and find it very hard to get another one.

My skin is the one true thing I own and I should be able to do with it what the hell I want to, but the world we live in today is still far too narrow-minded to allow me to do this and also provide a living for my family, but I am not running off to the courts of human rights bitching and moaning about it, I just begrudgingly accept it and look forward to the day I win the lottery so Jacek Kuzminski at Oxford Ink can spend the next few months inking what remains of my skin!

Plus the sad fact is id probably lose my case simply because loving tattoos is not a religion or belief it's something that exists which can be felt and seen as well as dated as far back in human existence to as early as 3300 BC. Unlike the rights of someone who has a belief in a deity that no one to date has any actual evidence of their existence, just a few theories and interpretations that lead to wars and genocides..... but as my history knowledge isn’t faultless I am happy to stand corrected if an organised mass killing has taken place by those who have tattoos against the disgusting non believers of the inky art?

In short I’d be stood alongside anyone fighting for their right to hold a belief, and I like to think I am very understanding and respectful of peoples beliefs when presented with them in their home, place of worship, and even when they knock at my door with a leaflet on why masturbation will send me to hell, but come on world its 2012 lets grow a belief backbone and stop pandering to those who want to push none factual beliefs on others in their jobs, in our schools, and in any public environment where a conflict between reality and beliefs will occur.

I’m not an Atheist and I’m not Agnostic, but I’d rather live in a country that isn’t dictated to by some people’s confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.  

Maybe I’ll start a campaign to get Ricky Gervais elected as Prime Minister so he can abolish the current bill of human rights in this country and work with Karl Pilkington to bring a new one in that is more in line with the modern world?....... not a bad idea for a show either.