So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Bushman]

You can count me in as one who hates them, shouldn't be using them, always ends up arguing with them. Why do they all have the most patronising female voice? "Surprising item in the bagging area, please remove to continue." "It's not surprising you stupid machine, it's a greeting card that's too light for your scale to comprehend."

The reason that I use them is because they accept cash, as in filthy folding lucre. No questions, no raised eyebrows, no virus concerns. When card companies, that includes loyalty cards, stop amassing my spending details on a profile I will start to use their cards.

I can guarantee any customer in my store that I ringing them out will be 5 times faster than them doing it themselves at the self checkout kiosk. Working in a supermarket with them can be maddening enough, I'm sure, but I work in a hardware store and we have so many odd bits and ends that it comes to a point where you're basically bouncing between kiosks helping customers who can't figure out why they can't scan the handful of screws they just grabbed from the bucket. If I could, I'd rip every one of them out and replace them with four more cashier's stations. We like to joke among ourselves that their only use to us is as job security.

You A-HOLES, DON'T LEAVE YOUR RUBBER GLOVES ON THE STREETS!!

Or the carts, the floors, the aisles, or shelves! Pick up after yourselves! Retail employees are not your maids!

 

[GHT]

We have an expression in the UK called Sod's Law, if it can go wrong it will go wrong. Or an inanimate object becomes defiant, or the birds crap on your newly washed car, or you hang out washing and the heavens immediately open up.

For example, our Easter Weekend has a public holiday on the Friday before and the Monday after. There's many a venue that puts on spring fairs, music festivals and so much more. Year after year all the hard work of organising it comes to nothing because year after year, Easter is total washout. But this year, with the country in lockdown, the weather is glorious. Sod's Law.

For my own part, Sod's Law struck just as we were banned from leaving home. My small hair trimmer gave up working, wouldn't you know it. The hair sprouting over my ears can be tamed and I don't have much left of the thatch on top to worry too much about, but the one thing that those small clippers would have been ideal for is my eyebrows. They are growing so fast that soon they will look like a pair of Venetian blinds covering my eyes. Sod's Law.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The use of an unctuous female voice on automated devices is because a female voice tends to cut thru random background noise better than a male voice does.

The ATM at my bank used to have a voice that sounded exactly like Counselor Troi from Star Trek, complete with weird pseudo-European accent. "Thaaank yew for bahnking weeth oos."

 

[JC225]

How about when you try and add new photos to your profile here on the lounge and the damn things are always turned sideways! I'm sure it's operator error on my part but why does that happen!

 

[Hercule]

The use of an unctuous female voice on automated devices is because a female voice tends to cut thru random background noise better than a male voice does.

They also do the nagging voice better than males. The self serve scanning kiosks at out local grocery store has a polite, if even attractive, female voice noting what has been scanned: "Red delicious apples... 95...cents", but if you take too long to remove the item from the scale a quite different nagging, bitchy female voice follows: "please place your item in the bagging area." It's actually quite humorous. At least she said please, I suppose.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

We have an expression in the UK called Sod's Law, if it can go wrong it will go wrong. ...

In the U.S., we know it as "Murphy's Law". Doubtless the name goes back to a time when a wave of Irish immigrants arrived on our shores as the result of the Potato Famine.

From an outfit calling itself "The Constitutional Rights Foundation",
"Between 1845 and 1855 more than 1.5 million adults and children left Ireland to seek refuge in America. Most were desperately poor, and many were suffering from starvation and disease. "

One of my great-great grandfathers was one of these.

Unsurprisingly, at the same time there arose a great deal of hostility, anxiety, and suspicion among long-settled Protestant Americans of the new arrivals, and a political movement/party, Native American Party a.k.a. the "Know Nothings" arose in reaction.

"blarney", "malarkey", "paddy wagon", "paddy", "mick", "harp" are among words referring to the Irish which once had common usage here, but now are considered offensive. "Murphy's Law" has lost it's anti-Irish flavor, and so survives.

The English, generally, are also known to hold the Irish in low regard, so none of this is likely to be surprising to you.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Bureaucrats Germany. In our smalltown, they need half a year to build a new small bridge over a ditch on a hiking trail...

 

[3fingers]

The ATM at my bank used to have a voice that sounded exactly like Counselor Troi from Star Trek, complete with weird pseudo-European accent. "Thaaank yew for bahnking weeth oos."

Our ATM had that same strange accent.
I thought it was odd but not anything to be angered by. Apparently, I was in the minority. They got so many complaints that she is now mute.

 

[GHT]

The English, generally, are also known to hold the Irish in low regard, so none of this is likely to be surprising to you.

What might surprise you, unless you are an historian, is an Irishman who was Churchill's right hand man throughout WW2. Look up Brendon Bracken.

 

[Trenchfriend]

WOW, "Irish Spring" soap is still that popular??

"Irish Spring" disappeared from Germany maybe 30 years ago!

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irischer_Frühling#/media/Datei:2017-11-16-Irischer_Frühling4-5630.jpg

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

What might surprise you, unless you are an historian, is an Irishman who was Churchill's right hand man throughout WW2. Look up Brendon Bracken.

As I recall it, speculation among Churchill's detractors had it that Bracken was Churchill's ba***rd.

 

[Harp]

As I recall, it speculation among Churchill's detractors had it that Bracken was Churchill's ba***rd.

Street slander.

 

[GHT]

As I recall it, speculation among Churchill's detractors had it that Bracken was Churchill's ba***rd.

You recall correct, but I would have thought that you might not have even given countenance to that myth. Bracken, through Churchill, reminded Chamberlain that he, Chamberlain, said that Hitler lied at the Munich agreement, so if Britain sued for peace, how do we know that Hitler will keep his agreement? Such was Chamberlain's discomfort that he said to Churchill, "don't believe all you hear from that ba***rd son of your's." And so the myth was born.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

You recall correct, but I would have thought that you might not have even given countenance to that myth. Bracken, through Churchill, reminded Chamberlain that he, Chamberlain, said that Hitler lied at the Munich agreement, so if Britain sued for peace, how do we know that Hitler will keep his agreement? Such was Chamberlain's discomfort that he said to Churchill, "don't believe all you hear from that ba***rd son of your's." And so the myth was born.

Hmmm, "Churchill Derangement Syndrome"? Some politicians seem to induce irrationality, don't they?

 

[Trenchfriend]

Tell me, what narcose stuff are american dentists using, that the patients are that TIGHT, after surgery??

 

[Trenchfriend]

2015? Are you kidding me??

In reality, the most people still wear the 90s Bermuda crap, aren't hey?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

How about when you try and add new photos to your profile here on the lounge and the damn things are always turned sideways! I'm sure it's operator error on my part but why does that happen!

I've noticed that pictures that were taken in portrait mode tend to do that. I now make sure that any pics that I want to post here are taken in landscape mode.

 

[GHT]

I've just spent almost forever finding a rather nasty spat in a thread in 2017. Success! Cut & paste it to the Banished Lounger thread. I only got as far as the cutting, the thread's locked. It was inevitable I suppose and really, on reflection, the inciter of that spat has long since left so best leave the past where it is.

 

[GHT]

What is it with this so called, me society? Whilst millions have respected the lockdown measures, roads and parks have remained busy, and the authorities across the country have repeatedly reported that people have not respected the 6 foot guidance on social distancing while others have continued to mingle.
Reuters.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Jeeesus, men, beeing to stupid to basically operate a washing machine... Because his (died) girlfriend always washed.

But to his defence, his new machine has a bad readable display, which is not very useful for high-aged. Black display with small red numbers for spinning speed and the separate (!) temperature choice. And we Germans usually have to bend over or hunker down, because our washers stand on the (bathroom) floor.