GRRRRRRRR!!! The title refers to Woolies, or BWS which is an offshoot of Woolies. Still trying to fleece their customers.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a six pack of cans of beer from BWS which were marked on the shelf at $21, down from $25. Silly me for not checking my docket before I left. When I got home I found that I had been charged the full price, $25. Grrrr! Of course, it’s too much trouble to go all the way back and complain, isn’t it? So I let it slide.

This time, last Saturday, I saw a four pack of cans of stout, priced at $31 or $7.75 per can. Expensive, but high alcohol and a special brew. And very nice it is, too.

Trouble was, someone had taken one can from the four. I wanted it, so I wanted the checkout to show 3x $7.75 = $23.25. The checkout ladies tried to get me to take something else to make up the four. I said no, but weakened and accepted a small 330ml bottle of Sail & Anchor lager from their mark down box. I expected a nominal charge for this bottle as it was out of date.

But when I got home, I found I’d been charged the full $31 as if all four high priced stout cans had been there! Bloody hell!

I am sick and tired of this robbery from Woolworths and/or BWS. This is dishonesty. It’s also laziness, in that they don’t keep their computer prices up to date.. What am I going to do? Dunno yet. But I’m warning the world, check your Woolies dockets because they will rob you. It’s ALWAYS in their favour, never in the customer’s favour. I NEVER have this trouble at Coles. Coles are so good that I hardly bother to check the till receipts. Lesson: don’t shop at Woolies.

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I’ve been watching The Crown series for the third time on Netflix and it’s amazing how much detail I’ve either forgotten or missed since I last watched it. It started in 2016, so time has erased a lot, but I’m getting so much enjoyment from seeing it again.

I must single out Clare Foy’s performance as Queen Elizabeth II in the first two series. She is magnificent! The slight tilt of her head, the steady gaze at her prime ministers, the courteous but regal attitude to her private secretaries and the other officials. The glorious sets! How did they do it? Did they build a replica Buckingham Palace with all its huge rooms and paintings? And Westminster Abbey? Amazing.

I’m just into series 4 at the moment, with one to go, and a new series 6 is coming on 9 November, we’re told. This would have to be one of the greatest television documentaries/dramatisations ever made, I say.

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I’ve also been widening my viewing with Netflix. I wrote a few weeks ago about how much I liked the Korean series The Extraordinary Attorney Woo, the autistic lawyer. It was memorable.

I’ve tried a few other Korean series but haven’t liked them as much, so far.

At the moment I’m hooked on two other Asian series: number one, The Midnight Diner, a small scale Japanese series about a tiny backstreet restaurant that only opens at midnight and closes at 6.30am. It’s run by one guy, the cook, and it has a small but loyal group of customers. Each episode is a vignette about life in Tokyo, with various characters, including a Yakuza gangster (who’s really a nice guy), three young women who are on the search for a suitable husband (each), and so on. Each episode also concludes with a quick lesson on how to make the Japanese dishes he serves. They’re not difficult to make.

Second is just called Asian Street Food, and as you’d expect, it showcases all the different types of street food from the Asian capitals. So far I’ve seen Indonesia (Jakarta), Bangkok, Japan, India (Delhi) and up next is Taipei in Taiwan. It’s excellently made. The camerawork, editing and colour grading is totally professional, highest quality. The narration is in English but there’s a lot of local speech with subtitles.

And to round it off, I rewatched the movie Mars Attacks last night. I must be desperate. I saw it many years ago and thought it was very average then, and it has not improved with age. Luckily it’s not too long. The overriding feeling I had is how bad their comic timing is. It’s too slow moving. There are too many gaps between action and punchline. Jack Nicholson as the president seems to be half asleep. Rubbish. The Poms and even we can do humour so much better.

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Which reminds me, Rolling Stone magazine has published their latest list of the top 100 TV shows. As you may have guessed, nine out of the top ten are American. The only foreign program is Fleabag, the British program.

Not one Australian program makes the top 100, natch. Nor does The Big Bang Theory. Huh!

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You’ll recall I had the Peugeot 407 in for cooling system repairs recently. When I put it into the RAC workshops, I left a note on the seat with a short list of things to look at, and the list included an oil change and oil filter.

Because it took so long and was a bit of a drama, when I got it back I didn’t check on the oil change. But now that I look, there’s no sticker on the windscreen and no stamp and notation in the log book. Grrr.

I haven’t kicked up a fuss yet but I’m pretty sure I’ve been charged for the service. I’ll have to phone them and ask if it’s actually been done, and if not, what do I do about it. Annoying.

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I’ve become quite an addict for YouTube shows lately, especially Cutting Edge Engineering, made by an Aussie bloke Kurtis and his wife Karen on the Gold Coast. He runs a sole trader engineering workshop and does heavy, and I mean heavy fitting, turning, milling and welding. He’s got about six giant lathes, a couple of enormous milling machines and does more kinds of welding than I knew existed. He fixes heavy machinery like graders, scrapers, dump trucks, tractors, you name it. It’s fascinating. They also feature their small bull terrier called Homeless. He’s charming, and viewers of the channel send in gifts of chew toys and pigs ears from all over, many from the USA. Good stuff.

The other two shows I’m a bit addicted to are a UK TV series, Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away, about debt collectors, high court debt collection agents or bailiffs. These are pairs of guys, heavyweights, who are given court authority to collect debts, or to take goods to equivalent value in lieu. Although they take a lot of abuse and lies from the debtors, I give them credit, they are unfailingly polite and never use violence.

But another UK series is quite a bit more violent: Re-po Men. This is about guys who are contracted to repossess goods, usually vehicles, from people who haven’t paid. This show does get violent. The collectors are big, solid ex military types. They don’t start the fights, but they often have to fight their way out of trouble. This show gets the heart racing. It’s not the best thing to be watching before trying to sleep.