Having coffee and a cheese scone at Crimples, Harrogate, while the car is charging. Pleasant but as usual the drink and food arrived separately and the hot scone was almost cold by the time the coffee arrived.
Must throw out these tights, just noticed a hole in the right thigh, it's about three centimetre in diameter!
Charging again because I want to be able to drive around at my destination over the next week without having to drive 20 miles each way to charge.
Doing it at the Scotch Corner Holiday Inn. Very irritating, had to register the car at reception. Never had to do that before. Loads of signs threatening 100 pound fines for non-compliance. That's something I only see in the UK too.
It is not illegal though because it is not actually lying.
It is naming the trade-marked branch of the company - the company itself probably [i]is[/i] named but in the small print, not necessarily openly proclaiming something like, "[b]ACME[/b], proud to be part of the Thury Group".
Only most customers don't ask awkward questions...
I encountered something like this when travelling by train from Bristol to Leeds, using the so-called [i]Cross-Country Railways[/i]. A map in the coach vestibule, showing that company's routes highlighted in the network generally, revealed in its small-print footnote that CCR is only a brand used by [i]Deutsche Bahn Schenker[/i], part of the German state-owned railways organisation.
Effectively I was travelling across England on UK-owned rails, but in a train operated by the German state!
This led to my digging further to learn that Great Western Railways, South-Eastern Railways, Docklands Light Railway and several other supposedly separate service franchises are all merely First Group badges. And that DBS operates most of the UK's rail goods services and oddly, the steam-hauled charter "specials".
(PC - want to but shares in First? You'd be richer than me, at around £100 a share!)
@ninalanyon well, yes, sort of! The lines, stations and signalling etc are still state-owned by the services are run by private companies renting track access. They also hire the rolling-stock. So all told, a mess!
Prior to being nationalised into British Railways in 1948, I think it was, the railways were all privately-owned, in four huge conglomerates enforced by a government in the 1930s "Grouping" the many former separate companies. The big difference between them and indeed BR, and the present situation, was that they were self-contained. The "Big Four" and BR did use some contractors but generally they built, maintained and operated all their own locomotives, rolling-stock, track, signals, buildings, etc. themselves. It wasn't all perfect, nothing is, and it was desperately labour-intensive with working conditions that could be physically grim; but generally it worked well. No profits going off abroad. No importing trains we were perfectly capable of building in the country that invented the concept.
Oh, and anyone buying their electricity from EDF is propping up La Replique. Electricite de France (apologies for the missing accents) is owned by that country.
My water and drainage services are courtesy of a Malaysian hotels-developer and cement manufacturing group.
Chelsea FC has just been flogged off to some rich American after some years as the property of some rich Russian, though at least he did seem actually to be a fan of English football. Unlike the Wall Street spivs who wanted to cherry-pick several top-flight European and English football "clubs" and corall them in a hermetic pseudo-league, until the fans rightly told them to get lost.
Not far from me is a factory making that plaything of the "filthy-rich capitalist pig", the big luxury cruising boat. Oh the irony - after being in the hands of a bunch of Irish money-traders it now belongs to a nominal-company in... the hard-line Communist, People's Republic of China.
just arrived at the cheap room that I booked for the whole of next week. I decided that it was getting expensive staying in pubs and hotels and anyway it was time to drive a bit less and just relax.
Arrived to find the proprietor and two of his friends having an animated discussion about the business of letting out rooms. Good job too because the company that they use to do the booking stuff hadn't sent me the code for the lock box with the key or the room number. Same stupid rigmarole that I had at the first place I stayed in in Brighton. They send multiple messages through Booking.com asking for a picture of ID, and a refundable deposit. That deposit and the demand for ID are going to be the subject of a complaint to both the proprietor and Booking.com when it comes to time to give a review.
Anyway, even if they had sent me a message I wouldn't have received it because I don't have an always online email device.
Still the room is nice, big, freshly painted in white and pale grey, bay window looking out onto the road, simple desk with a kettle, cups, glasses, tea, and coffee, and a whole packet of Nice biscuits. And a comfortable double bed.
It seems that the previous occupant made off with the remote for the television so the proprietor took one from another room. It seems that I might be the only occupant of the house.
There's a Sainsbury's Local just across the road so I won't even have far to go to get a snack!
@ArishMell The place has delusions of grandeur. It's a garden centre with a café/restaurant, but you have to wait to be seated, not self service. The waiting staff all wear aprons but the guy who attends the door and directs you to a table is wearing jeans and a short sleeved shirt that's not tucked in. He looks more like a less than averagely well off customer than an employee.
@ninalanyon I see! I once attended an annual dinner with about 100 guests, where the hotel staff tried a silver-service approach... but with far too few staff. It didn't work! The establishment accept its mistake, gave the society a big discount. We did in fact go back the following year and this time, without silver-service, it went very well.
