Sterling rip-offs

.....and while on the subject of Debenhams. They're trying to entice us all with this whopping 20% sale offer on some items. All it does for me is emphasise the massive rip-off that they, and other UK-based retailers, are conning us with on all their products. They price everything in both sterling and euros (at least they are fairly transparent about the rip-off) but seem to operate on an exchange rate of £1 = €0.67. So an item priced at £50 costs €75. Only at current exchange rates that should be €59. So even with their supposed 20% discount it's still more expensive than in the UK.

I didn't buy anything.

Christmas me arse

I went down town (Dublin) after work this evening and walked through Debenhams. The whole store was reverberating to the sounds of Slade's "Merry Xmas Everyone". Feel-good, fun Xmas song, and perfectly appropriate for the Xmas season. Only it's not bloody Christmas for another month and a half. Apparently Dublin city traders have decided we mightn't spend enough money and Xmas, like the budget, has been brought forward. I've sometimes wondered how incongruous it seems to celebrate Xmas on the beach, Australian-style. Maybe that's what we're moving towards. Xmas slowly advancing until we suddenly find decorations and Santa's Grottos in the shops in July.

Come to think of it, beach celebrations in Ireland in July is a bit incongruous as well, with the persistent rain and greyness that seems to characterise our "summers".

Do I want to do this?

You know I'm not even sure if I want to succumb to this apparently compulsive trend of wanting to publicly share your thoughts on something. So if there are no further posts you can guess that I've resisted! But I just thought it would be useful to have any easy way of updating content without doing the conventional playing around with Dreamweaver or Expression and uploading stuff. I have resigned myself to having become a grumpy old man and this might be a way of recording my fury and frustrations with modern life!