I went to their Stockists Locator page to see if there were any retailers near me. The Region drop down list had a typo for Ireland (North & Rebuplic of Ireland) where “Rebuplic” should be “Republic” (swap b and p).

I used the Customer Centre section to inform them and they replied telling me that the issue would be forwarded to the web site team to fix the issue.

A few days later I checked the site and found that the list had been changed but that they had only half fixed it. Now it says “Repuplic” – the b was changed to a p but the other p wasn’t changed to a b.

I am sure that some would take this half-fix a deliberate slight against Irish people but I find that such offence takes a lot of energy.

Update: 4 November – the typos have finally been corrected.

Red cold, blue hot taps reversed

I joined my former college classmates for the early portion of the Jim Finn Stag pub crawl, before everyone got incoherent.

In the third pub, The Hut in Phibsborough, the bathroom had a sign about the incorrectly coloured taps.

The blue tap gives hot water, the red tap is for cold water.

That reversal must really get messy when the clients are drunk.

Why couldn’t the owners either swap the taps, or the feed pipes or even the coloured plastic at the top of the taps.

There is a gem of an example on Blanchardstown Road South, behind Power City. There is a nice footpath and off-road cycle track that brings you from the nearby Renault garage to … well, that’s it, it doesn’t go anywhere. A little after you turn the corner and pass the pedestrian crossing, the footpath and cycle track just end. How bloody hard would have been to continue to Clonsilla Road, a mere 200 metres. The area is reserved for Metro West so ownership of the land would not have been a problem. Pathetic.

Not even nearly line up

Looking at the pedestrian crossing points at a nearby roundabout it looks like the Traffic Engineers at Fingal County Council have a wonky ruler.

The dished parts of the pavement on either side don’t even nearly line up. Even a kid would draw a more straight line freehand.

This was designed by the department whose policy is:

to provide appropriate traffic measures to ensure efficient and safe transportation for all road users.

Smoking affects dexterity

I was walking through the business park on the way to work and saw proof that smoking affects dexterity. Most businesses just have the tall, thin bin for cigarette butts. The smokers at this company obviously have difficulty fitting their cigarette butts into the holes in the bin top. I must come to the only conclusion possible – smoking effects dexterity.

Now, the issues at Oracle Ireland seem to extend beyond the dexterity of its smokers, cyclists seem to be either in danger or accident prone. At the car park barrier is a sign directing cyclists to walk to the bike shelter.

Unfortunately the conclusion is not obvious this time – either cyclists (who have managed to cycle to the business park) have difficulty safely making their way past a car park of about 30 cars to a bike shelter – or – the drivers of the cars have a habit of driving into the cyclists who have made it this far.

Nice looking site.

I clicked on ‘Maps’ at the bottom of the page. Nothing happened. The url in the status bar showed a ‘#’ so I waited for a popup window. Nothing happened. I looked at the source code (no tables – good stuff) and was quite surprised to see:

<a href="#">Maps</a>

for all 15 links in the footer! (i.e. no url, no javascript for a popup, no nuthin).

I did find the directions via the Contact Us link at the top of the page. Unfortunately the directions seem to have been copied from the AA Route Planner – they are horribly verbose. The M50 and M1 toll prices are out of date too.

The page also mentions getting their by rail but omits which Leixlip station to use and directions from the station to the hotel (it’s Leixlip Confey and it’s about 1.25 miles from the station to the hotel).

It then lists three Dublin Bus routes to Leixlip but gives a link to CIE’s website instead of to the timetables of each route.

I reported the links, directions and train issues a week ago. Nothing has changed except for a typo (City Center -> City Centre) being fixed.

The sign says that they aren't there.

This laziness is all over the place – in Swords Fingal County Council built a roundabout and were too lazy to remove the Stop sign (there is a Yield sign somewhere behind the Stop sign).

The wheelie bin was a nice follow-on, making it easy for citizens to move their overflowing bins to the side of the road. It also makes it easy for the binmen Waste Management operatives to bring the bin to the truck where a mechanical arm lifts and empties the bin.
The binman’s operative’s heart rate is still close to resting rate. This is all quite the opposite of the times gone by when coalmen and binmen (they weren’t “operatives” back then) hauled heavy loads on their back.

Since things are so much easier now, why they hell can’t the lads (I’ve never seen a woman do the job) put the bins back where they found them? I’ve repeatedly asked Fingal’s Waste Management Department to ask the lads to return the bins to the path. Weren’t these people brought up to leave the place as they found it? It’s not as if the empty bins are heavy.