No, I don’t want your shitty add-ons

What the hell is it with software companies thinking it’s OK to bombard you with additional junk packaged up with their programs already?

I finally got ’round to buying Windows 7 for my laptop (after finding it plain awesome on my AA1) so did the whole back-up files, etc and reinstall malarkey yesterday afternoon. This meant that I had to re-download Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. Nearly every piece of software I’ve wanted to install has tried to give me extra crap on top.

Downloaded Foxit and it tries to install a browser toolbar, do something with the Ask search engine, and spam me with bloody eBay shortcuts on my desktop (even after I’ve told it I don’t want them, it asks again!) Avast anti-virus now comes with Google Chrome (which I was planning on installing anyway, but that’s not the point) and then Adobe installs a Firefox plugin, download manager extension and tried to get me to add some McAfee shit on the download web page too.

I always customise every step of the installation process with EVERY application I install, so no fear of ending up with unnecessary bulk, but your average user isn’t going to bother with that. It’s no wonder people complain about their Windows boxes getting bogged down with bloat.

DO NOT WANT!

Posted on: May 16, 2010 · Category: Geek, WTF

HiPP Baby Club Aggressive Marketing

I signed up to HiPP Baby Club a while back to vote for a friend’s picture in a competition they were holding. When signing up, you’re asked to specify details of your children such as how you’re feeding them (I specified breastfed), their age, etc.

So, there’s me checking my e-mail first thing this morning to find an e-mail from the baby club titled “5 months old – Weaning special”. Now, Isabel has only just turned 5 months today. You’re not supposed to start weaning until at least 6 months (see NHS no rush to mush page). This is based on studies that show early weaning is damaging to the digestive health of babies. I’ve already made clear my thoughts on early weaning so I won’t go on about it, but I just couldn’t believe how bloody blatant this push to early wean was.

It wasn’t even subtle about it; there were several misleading lines, including:

6 months is the recommended age to begin (for development reasons you shouldn’t leave it any later than this), but some babies may be ready sooner.

and:

Signs to look for
Baby still seems hungry, even after more milk has been given
Showing an interest in your food
Putting toys and objects in their mouth
Able to sit up well with support

For starters, milk (either breast or artificial) is the only source of nutrition a baby needs for the first year of life; food is for fun, to explore tastes and textures. Even hungry babies don’t need early weaning because solid food contains less calories! Secondly, there is no “developmental” reason to delay solids, it is in fact recommended by many professionals to delay solids (more so if there’s a history of allergies). As for the signs to look for… total tosh! Isabel has been doing those things since under 3 months old, are they suggesting I should have weaned at 12 weeks?!

I tried to unsubscribe to the mail and the web page gave me an error, so I sent them a ranty response and smugly deleted their mail thinking it’d be the last I heard from them.

No such luck. The postie interrogated me at lunch time to give me a bright green cellophane-wrapped package. I could barely hide my excitement! ;) Mind you, it was short-lived. Lo and behold, yet more HiPP weaning crap. Free samples of follow-on and night time formula (don’t even get me started on this shit) and a sachet of baby rice. Nowhere on the accompanying letter was it mentioned that the recommendation is to wait until 6 months before weaning. In fact, the wording positively encourages you to start asap: “the perfect start”, “Babies love organic goodness” etc.

I can’t stand this sort of aggressive marketing, and rest assured that the whole lot went in the bin. I’ll start weaning Izz after 6 months, not before, and certainly not on to HiPP products!

Posted on: April 14, 2010 · Category: Interwebs

Your Stupidity Knows No Bounds

So, clearly being one of these crazy rambling mummy types now it’s only logical that I browse a few of those crazy rambling mummy type forums. The first baby-oriented site I joined was babycentre. It’s shite; loaded down with adverts and full of total muppets who shouldn’t be allowed to breed. However, that aside, there are also some very funny and very intelligent mums on there who entertain me regularly.

Now, out of boredom while feeding Izz I decided to browse a few of the groups I wouldn’t normally look at. My “birth club” for starters, which I abandoned shortly after the boobmonster was born because I got sick to death of reading about babies being force-fed hungry baby formula to sleep through, and tales of babies being left to cry. From there, I ended up in the “Early Weaning” board. Bearing in mind that the recommendation is to delay the introduction of solid foods until 6 months (26 weeks), because prior to that food can leak from the digestive system as it’s not properly matured, imagine my horror to find:

my daughter is 11 weeks on monday but is acting like she wants more then just milk. [..] i have baby rice and rusks in

and…

my lil boy is 9 weeks been feeding for 2 wks x

and…

my boy was 9lb 7 oz when born is now 10 weeks and 14lb on hungry baby milk. [..] Want to give him some baby rice now before bed so he will sleep.

I just… wow. Words cannot describe how stupid and selfish you have to be to force a child to consume more than they’re physically ready for. I’m well aware that they used to suggest weaning at 4 months, but I’m pretty sure the Department of Health didn’t increase this just for shits and giggles.

Of course, you mustn’t disagree with these women because mums know best!

Posted on: April 6, 2010 · Category: Parenting, WTF

Never buy a car from Dream Car Sales, Telford

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Dream Car Sales are now Redland Car Sales

At the end of October last year, I wrote an entry in which I mentioned a local car dealer: Dream Car Sales, Telford. We bought a car from Dream Car Sales to tide us over while ours was undergoing repair because I was heavily pregnant and could’ve gone into labour at any time.

The car we bought was an M reg Astra MK3 3 door, with a catalogue of problems (most of which we found after parting wth our cash) including:

  • One tyre was so badly degraded it came apart in the tyre shop.
  • The airfilter was missing, and the trunking was split hugely
  • The brakes are shocking. The pedal goes to the floor.
  • The exhaust sections are held together by bolts with no nuts, ceramic cement and cable ties

You can see the full list, including pictures, on Karl’s page.

Since writing the entry, I’ve been contacted by two separate people regarding Dream Car Sales. First, through by entry by a guy called Chris:

hi i am sorry to hear of your car i too got a car from dream car sales whats the word DREAM all about nightmare more like, JUST BEFOR CHRISTMAS it was my wifes first car and she was gutted she could not drive it i am in dispute and dealing with trading standards to get my cash back £500 he sold the car for spares or repair which is illegal to let you drive it away

…and then again through Facebook by a guy called Sam:

hi, just found your blog as i searched for dream car sales on google to see if anyone else had a whinge about them, they had my car put through a dodgy mot, it had very dangerous brakes, suspension faults on all four corners and several electrical problems. car nearly killed me in the snow last week, tracked all the previous history on motinfo.co.uk.

just a bit of advice if you still have the car, check the mot sheet and see if it says ‘yes’ in the advisory box, and check the left hand corner for the sheet of paper that they rip off that warns you how rediculously dangerous your new ‘dream car’ is…

you can use the mot number and the reg to find out all recorded mot history (when it went computerised 5 years ago) on www.motinfo.gov.uk. i only recently checked this but i did challenge the mot tester as it had been on the forecourt since the mot and had passed with a brake light, headlight out and the horn didnt work, but we didnt realise the extent it was gone until the brakes failed after not feeling right since i had the car. however the garage insisted it was normal on my shape clio and the car was very cheap for what it was.

mine had failures that then turned to advisories (advisory means you should sort them, if somethings failed and repaired it should be fixed and not mentioned on the retest, when it says ‘brakes are barely at pass level and should be checked thoroughly), and they rip this sheet off and sell you the car anyway. as they have done with me.

In addition to this, the last time Karl went to our local mechanic, he was told of another lady who’d bought a bigger car from Dream Car Sales as she was expecting twins, and she was left with an unsafe vehicle too. If the owners are willing to put pregnant women into cars that could quite easily fail at a moments notice due to failing brakes or a perished tyre, it won’t be long before one of their cars is involved in an accident, and I dread to think of the consequences.

If you’ve been sold a car by Dream Car Sales, please get in touch: jem@jemjabella.co.uk

Posted on: January 19, 2010 · Category: WTF

The Politics of Parenting

Gina Ford — so-called “parenting guru” — has lashed out at UK Lib Dem party leader Nick Clegg after he hit out at her parenting manual. Ford, an unqualified former maternity nurse questioned Clegg’s maturity (ironic, given her lawsuit against mumsnet after mums shared a few views of their own) because of his comparison of The Contented Little Baby Book to “a sort of Ikea assembly instruction manual“.

My favourite part of her retort is her misguided idea that because the book has sold 1 million copies, that there are 2 million British parents following her advice. I don’t know what planet Ford is on, but this is as barmy as me suggesting that every one of my thousands of visitors over the years are loyal readers. In actual fact, my following is smaller by yards, and I imagine much of the sales of Ford’s book are by well-meaning and probably child-free friends and relatives who read the blurb and think it sounds amazing.

Back here on planet Earth we know that her advice to breastfeeding mothers is potentially detrimental to supply (babies suckle at the boob to encourage production of milk; her suggestion to top baby’s up with formula interferes with that) and her enthusiasm for cry it out/controlled crying techniques chills me to the bone. Her book and its followers are symptomatic of several generations of parents who think raising a child involves shoving a bottle in a baby’s gob and posting in front of the TV so as not to be an inconvenience to mummy and daddy.

As for Clegg… far from losing voters, I have a feeling this revelation of his choice of parenting method is likely to connect him to a lot of mums up and down the country.

Posted on: January 11, 2010 · Category: Parenting