KFC anyone?

This post has been prompted by desparation. I feel I must speak out and express my utter dispair. The Colonel would turn in his grave.

I have reached the conclusion that eating at a KFC restaurant here in the UK is largely a day long affair. Please don't anyone call this fast food.

How many times have you experienced this time-wasting scenario:

1. Enter KFC via door and join queue which begins a few inches over the threshold.

2. Contemplate leaving but the pull of the chicken is just too strong.

3. You notice that there appears to only be one person serving whilst there are four vacant tills.

4. The queue goes down very slowly as everyone in front appears to be ordering for twelve.

5. Just when you begin to lose all hope, its nearly your turn. Alas! someone is now trying to pay with an obscure credit card/voucher/cheque.

6. Nearly there! But what's this? Someone pushes in to complain that their drink has too much/not enough ice or the chicken is too hot/cold or just for an impromptu chat with the person who is 'supposed' to be working.

7. You get to the front of the queue but the person has disappeared... you wait while in all probablility they are using the restroom (without washing their hands).

8. Its YOUR turn... Your mind goes temporarily blank while you try to remember what you came in for.

9. The staff member has little to say while you order but seems to scowl.. Surely all this food can't be for one person?

10. After taking your order, they don't move on and take the next order... Oh no, they disappear again to manhandle chicken and chips onto a bun or into the box. At this point, you also notice significant gravy stains on the persons uniform and wonder... how?

11. You are relieved of far too much money in return for your meal which has inevitably lost some of its original appeal.

But wait! Even I was shocked yesterday as I visited a KFC which will remain nameless. Yesterday, while I was at Festival Park near Newcastle, I decided to visit a KFC restaurant and after waiting for nearly 30 mins for my food, I nearly choked on it when I heard the attendant announce to those who had been waiting 30 mins to reach the front... "I'm sorry, we have run out of Chicken"

Now I thought that I wouldn't finish my post on a negative so here's a few suggestions that I think the KFC crew could find useful.

1. Make sure you have chicken in stock - This one's important

2. If you have 4 tills... Why not push the (gravy) boat out and use them...

3. After taking someone's order... Serve the next person and the next, so on and so forth.

4. Get ANOTHER STAFF MEMBER to prepare orders using those handy monitors, Is that not what they are for?

5. Don't think people don't mind waiting... we do!

And finally... You may wonder why I have titled this post with the word 'Conspiracy' Well, basically I have found that regardless of the venue, the experince at KFC seems to be identical. Now I can't figure out why this is the case so I'm prepared to consider the possibility of some kind of KFC conspiracy.

And as for me, If any employees see this... I could be consuming the 'Hocker' burger unawares the next time I visit...

A big day for Mancunian Bloggers

With award categories including 'political' 'personal' 'arts' and 'culture' its going to be a mixed audience attending tonights first EVER Manchester bloggers awards bash.

I'll be there (of course!), loitering by the buffet table to mingle with my contemporaries and also to find out 'what the hell' an RSS feed actually is...

I've also hit upon what I think may be a totally unique idea. What if I take my sexy black Macbook down with me and actually blog from the event? I'll bet no-one else thinks of that idea... Sometimes I suprise myself with my creativity and originality.

The battle for hearts and minds... and YouTube

Am I the only person to notice a distinct increase of serious video's over on YouTube?

Its out with freakish 'near-fatal' accidents and in with party political pieces which try to sneak under the 'cool' radar to register with people who think that Senator McCain makes chips for a living.

I'm not saying that its a bad thing to drop the old political pill in with all that sugar but I do wonder if YouTube really is the place.

Here in the UK, the leader of the Tory party has set up his own blog, podcast and, vodcast too. He's trying to reach people who don't normally take much interest in the political world unless they start banning apple products which contain too much Mercury. (Airport base station anyone?)

I'm watching with interest to see if the medicine reapears up the YouTube, or if its swallowed, hook, line and sinker.

But what if all these political podcasts eat up too much precious space on my beloved iPod?

Well that would be too bitter a pill to swallow

Apologies apologies!...

Ok its been quite some time since my last blog but I've been Holidaying in the Algarve and working hard to catch up on my return but I thought I'd bring you all up to speed with some of my recent photo outings since we spoke last.

I'm going to start by looking once again at what makes a good picture. When I went on my hols, I didn't take my DSLR and lenses, instead I took my Sony T3 (cybershot) and was quite happy with the results too. My thoughts as to photography were also provoked further when my first trip out since my return with my DSLR camera was a complete let down.

We went out to photograph in the evening and I failed to get a single shot, my camera coping very poorly with the contrast range out in the evening sun. I tried hard to fix the problem but failed and became very frustrated.



What a contrast and refreshing change I have found then, by using the Sony T9 for a few informal nature type shoots. Here the focus has been away from the kit and firmly on the framing of my pictures and I've found it absolutely amazing.

Now most multi-format photographers commonly go through re-birth's with film then digital then whatever else and My DSLR isn't going on ebay just yet but I found it so pleasing to carry around a small, inobtrusive compact camera and snap some pics that, in my opinion, represent some of the best I have to offer.

I'm including a few here but don't forget, the full res ones are over on my flickr account and you can click the flickr badge at the side of my blog to get there.







All of these pics were taken on a consumer compact digital camera (Sony T9) and pare pretty much taken on point-and-shoot mode too. Personally speaking, I'm very pleased with the results.

I think that experiences like these help to remind us gadget freaks that the best camera on the market doesn't necasarily take the best pictures. Anyone with a modern digital compact can easily steal the crown from under their noses.

Pictures of cars...

Here's a few pics I took for some friends who own a car dealership. I just thought I'd share them online too.



Oh, and while were on the car theme... try this!