The Psychotic Monkey » rant

Starr "too busy" for his fans

The Monkey — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:41:27 +0000

Ringo Starr, known around the world as the drummer for The Beatles, has decided that he no longer has time for his fans. He’s put a video message on his website telling fans that any fan mail sent to him after October 20th will be thrown away, and no items will be signed after this date either. Starr described the video as, “a serious message to everybody watching” the BBC reports here.

I can’t tell you how much this annoys me. A reality check would do him no harm whatsoever. Starr needs to remember why he’s famous, and who makes him famous. You can guarantee though that, with the launch of his last album in January, he’s not too busy to cash the cheques that the record company keep sending him.

Tesco profits on the up

The Monkey — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:39:51 +0000

Tesco has announced today that it’s half-year profits have risen by 11.3% to a staggering £1.43bn (the BBC News report is here). Very well done Tesco. I personally buy all of my bananas from there so I like to think that I’m helping them along. And not so long ago there was the announcement from Centrica that their profits were down, but that they were still making a profit. BP also announced a rise in profits of 6% for the second quarter of the year. Why have I mentioned these you might ask. Well there is a point…

The main difference between these is the outcry that is caused when an energy/fuel company makes a profit. People cry foul and demand that “windfall taxes” be introduced, and that energy companies are the spawn of the devil. However, when Tesco announce the increase in profits, is there such an outcry? Will there be phone calls today to the likes of Radio Five Live from outraged Tesco customers? Of course not. And that ticks me off!

Anyone who knows me outside of this blog knows that I’m one of those monkeys that works in the energy sector, and therefore I’m likely to defend it. And I say, “Of course I am!”. It just annoys me when normally level-headed people play such double standards as to not complain about Tesco making money, and not demand that prices should be slashed across the board. Sure I could choose to shop elsewhere, in the same way that people could choose to buy their groceries elsewhere. Maybe I should start a petition to get Tesco to lower their prices even further??!! That gives me an idea…

Here endeth the rant…

Driving licenses free with breakfast cereals?

The Monkey — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 11:55:32 +0000

Quite a sensational headline don’t you think? I’ve not found this anywhere else on the internet today and so I can only assume that I’m breaking this story first! Well this is new territory for me.

I believe that the title says it all. It seems that a well known breakfast cereal manufacturer here in the UK have started to give away driving licenses to anyone who is old enough, if they collect tokens from certain specially marked packs. You know the format, “send 3 tokens plus £4.95 and a Stamped Addressed Envelope to…”. I really never thought this day would come. I mean where does this leave the value of the good old driving test?

So how have I discovered this you might ask? Well it’s simple. At the point on my journey to work this morning where I came face to face with some stupid cow coming the wrong way round a roundabout while sending a text message, I figured it must be the only plausible explanation. I mean surely such incompetence would have been caught had this dozy mare had to actually sit a driving test? Fortunately (and unusually for a Monday morning) I was alert enough to be able to swerve, beep the horn and shout obscenities at her with amazing reactions! Now hopefully she’ll appreciate the error of her ways and leave the driving to those of us that have actually taken a test…