Categories
Cufflinks

Lego cufflinks? Come on, that’s brilliant!

I came across these superb Lego cufflinks from Ellie Ellie and I have to admit, I reckon they’ll look excellent contrasted with a shocking pinstripe.

For most of my childhood, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with Lego — and for the longest time, Christmas in my house was always, always about the latest ‘big’ Lego toy.

I’m re-living it all again at the moment through little Archie with his Duplo. Speaking of which — it looks to me like these cufflinks (priced at a very reasonable £19.50 per pair) come in a Duplo brick box! Love it!

Categories
Clothing Observations Services

Moss Bros Hire: Shocked and then delighted by terrific service!

[Note, I start off negative, but that soon changes…]

There is perhaps nothing more embarrassing on a Monday morning commute than being seen carrying a Moss Bros Hire suit carrier.

I can’t stand it.

It’s so…

Well I just don’t like it.

I think it goes against my exclusive, quality viewpoint.

Perhaps I’ve witnessed too many weddings in downmarket hotels featuring chimps dressed to the nines in Moss Bros Hire attire (which, if you can ignore the contents — i.e., the chimp — does look pretty good.)

Now and again I have to resort to Moss Bros Hire because I haven’t got my arse in gear and bought a jacket for my kilt. I’ve got the whole shebang — everything — except the jacket. I can’t remember why this is the case. So whenever I have the opportunity to get stuck into the proper Highland gear, I need to hire the jacket that goes with it.

There’s a wedding coming up this weekend. Arrrrgh!

I’ve been all over the place with work. I haven’t had time to get it sorted.

I need the jacket for tomorrow.

It’s a potentially big ask.

So I walked into the Richmond branch of Moss Bros Hire at lunchtime today and asked if I could hire the ‘morning dress’ jacket for a kilt.

The chap behind the counter smiled blandly.

“That has to come from Scotland,” he tells me, delighted — I feel — that he doesn’t have to do any work. I get the impression that he’s about to deflect my invitation to take some cash from me by pulling a ‘computer-says-no’.

That’s precisely what he does.

“It takes a week to get it from Scotland… so…”

“I need it for tomorrow or at the very latest, Saturday morning,” I explain.

I’m not sure why I bothered explaining. I think it was in the vain — stupid — hope that the chap might want to actually help me out.

He flashed me another limited, bland smile, “You could try Covent Garden…”

Right.

I could.

‘What about you?’ I thought. ‘You could phone them now for me.’

I didn’t voice that. Obviously. I wanted to get out of the store as soon as possible. The can’t-be-bothered atmosphere was crushing.

“Oh, ok, thanks…” I said, walking out.

Rubbish.

However I had to admit that my expectations were completely and totally met, if not exceeded. This is precisely what I’d expected.

Ultimately it was my fault for leaving it all so late. But you know, that’s a super opportunity to make a good amount of cash out of me.

Anyway.

I thought I’d see if the Bracknell store could help out.

The last time I needed to hire a jacket, my wife and I happened to be in Bracknell and happened to be walking by Moss Bros Hire. I really didn’t want to go in — I wanted to arrange a time with a tailor and get a sodding jacket made. But.. I ran out of time. So we popped into the shop there and — well, I have to say, we were served efficiently.

So I flipped out the BlackBerry, searched for “Moss Bros Bracknell” and hit the call button.

A chap called Dan answered. He was unusually bright, caring and professional. Unusual in the context of my general view of Moss Bros.

“Oh that might be a stretch,” he said, listening to my enquiry. (I’m paraphrasing but words to that effect)

“Let me make a few calls,” he said, before he took my number, “I’ll call you back in a moment.”

I walked back to the office and a minute later, Dan was back on the phone.

“Ok we can get something for you, but it’ll cost an extra £10. Is that ok?”

I practically screamed with delight.

Yes, fine.

In the intervening time I’d looked out my old hire details and quoted the contract number back to him. He looked up the details and bam… job done. I didn’t even have to bother giving him my size.

“Right that’s all sorted,” he said, “Ready for collection tomorrow.”

Get in.

I told him he’d delivered excellent service. I briefly narrated the ‘computer says no’ horror at the Richmond store and then thanked him again.

Thank you to Dan in the Bracknell store for helping me out. Excellent, excellent work.

My perspective of Moss Bros Hire has thus changed rather dramatically — for the positive. I really must update my perspective of the company’s brand. Looking around their main corporate site I see they’re offering quite a wide range of quality services — including recently launching a bespoke suit service from their flagship London store. I rather like the keen, clear pricing strategy too.

Categories
Cufflinks

I had cufflink envy at the weekend with these £1 (“one pound”) designs

Last weekend I was at a family function and spied these on my brother’s wrists. They’re cufflinks made out of real one pound coins — although they’re obviously spruced up a little bit. They really looked fantastic on the cuff so I made a mental note to look them up.

My brother got them as a gift from the renowned Benson & Clegg Ltd. You can find these particular one pound cufflinks here. They’re £68 plus delivery and they’ve got a variety of options (e.g. Irish pound, Scottish Pound, English pound) and a whole load of other monetary-based options.

I think I’ll need to get a pair.

 

Categories
Home

Put one of these wall mounted Diner phones in the kitchen!

Now then I have to say, I love the retro possibilities with this device. It’s an old wall mounted phone that you’d expect to see in any American Diner worth it’s salt. And they do like their salt in America.

This unit is a very reasonable £59.99 from The Contemporary Home.

Here’s the description:

This American 3-slot style payphone was first introduced in the 1950s and remained virtually unchanged until 1965. Features pushbutton technology with authentic rotary look, wall or desk mountable with heavy-duty ABS cabinet and chrome accents, full-featured coin bank with lock and key and ringer control.

Just to be clear, this is a fully working telephone supplied with a BT adaptor ready to plug in.

Love it.

For all the times I use a telephone at home these days, I reckon this would be brilliant for the kitchen!

Categories
Wine

Inspired Wine: Premium boxed wine that stays fresh for 6 weeks? Genius!

There is still a stigma about buying wine in boxes or cartons.

It’s very 1980s. At least, it feels that way. I feel — I’m not sure why — that it’s the lower-middle-class equivalent of buying a 24-can-pack of Stella.

At least, that’s what I thought.

I have no memories of wine-in-a-box or cartons. None at all. I’ve never ever bought wine that way. If anything I’ve always wondered that if a shop can sell 4 litres of wine for £6 (I’m making that price up, I don’t know) it’s probably rather vinegar-esque to say the least.

So I’ve no idea how much this stuff costs. Just that it’s all moderate rubbish. The sort of thing your rather weird uncle with the limp buys once a month from the “offie” (“Off License”).

When I came across Inspired Wine, then, I wasn’t best disposed to take a look. I was in my local Budgens supermarket when I came across a chap I knew. He was manning the temporary stand for Inspired Wines. He asked if I’d like a taste — he had samples arrayed out on a tray. I declined because I was due to take my wife to hospital (for the baby’s birth) later that day. I reasoned (and explained) that any hint of wine on my breath wasn’t advisable given the workload she had coming that day.

But I gladly took a flyer.

My normal methodology for buying wine is to go to Waitrose (or Budgens) and spent at least £10. Of late, I’ve been having good success with almost any Bordeaux that tops £10 from those shops. The trouble is… it’s a complete waste. I have a glass. A big glass. But usually just one glass.

My wife isn’t drinking at the moment. She was pregnant and now she’s breastfeeding. Wine isn’t a good combo.

So it’s just me.

I don’t want to have a few glasses as I need to get out of bed at random times through the night to settle Archie. Hangovers are severely incompatible with that and the guaranteed 6am wakeup call from Archie.

So boxed wine? Wine that doesn’t spoil over night? A box that you can just decant a glass from? That stays fresh for up to 6 weeks?

Yes.

All my boxes were being ticked.

I ran the concept by my wife who thought it was a great idea, principally because she’s used to watching me pour 80% of those nice Bordeauxs down the sink on a Saturday night. £8 of the £10 wasted.

I had a look on the site — www.inspiredwine.co.uk. I have to admit that I wasn’t necessarily sold right-away. I wanted a lot more information. I wanted to know how the whole boxed thing worked. How do you open it? How good is the wine? What’s the point in a Carafe? Just.. you know, *MORE* information.

The major issue I had was about the selection of wine. I hadn’t come across any of the brands and I was concerned that their range was a little limited.

In the end I thought I might as well give it a go.

I opted for the Cabernet Sauvignon from wine partner, Pepperwood. This was a whopping £35 for the box. Each box contains the equivalent of 4 bottles so the maths worked for me. The burning issue though: Is it wine any good?

When the box arrived, I gave it ago that evening.

Oh dear.

I don’t know WHAT I did, but the first glass I poured was shocking. Muchos vinegar. I couldn’t quite believe it. My wife tried a tiny sip and was shocked. It was watery rubbish. I’d expected some kind of deep red. The stuff that came out looked like ultra-diluted Ribena!

I was really disappointed. I had really high hopes.

Don’t worry. There’s a positive ending.

I left the box, got on with my evening and then a few days later, just before I was going to open a ‘proper’ bottle, I thought I should do a final test before pouring the whole box out.

This time the wine was a revelation. It was a nice dark red. It was deliciously drinkable. It was exactly as I was hoping. It was, if you’ll avoid the stupid description, highly accessible and interesting enough to keep me involved, to make me want to take another sip. In other words, this box from Inspired Wine was absolutely perfect.

I have NO idea what I was doing when I first opened the box. Perhaps I didn’t operate the tap properly. Maybe I’d siphoned off the wrong bit. I don’t know. However I haven’t looked back now.

I have no hesitation in recommending Inspired Wine as a phenomenally useful product, especially if you like a nice glass of wine and don’t want to keep on buying bottles (that you invariably waste). I reckon I opened the box about 3 weeks ago and every 2-3 days, I’ll pour myself a glass of red from it.

My parents popped over the other weekend and I delighted in demonstrating the box to them, pouring them both a glass. They were also impressed. I think they initially applied the same “BOXED WINE???” viewpoint when I was introducing it. But after the first sip they were converted.

I’m going to be buying more. They’ve got a nice collection — Pino Noir, Zinfandel, Merlot, Shiraz. I reckon I’ll need to try them all.

I have to say that right now, I don’t intend looking elsewhere. The whole boxed concept works absolutely perfectly for me: I want wine available immediately. I don’t want to have to mess around opening a bottle when I only ever want a glass-or-two. And I want decent wine too. I don’t want to sacrifice quality. For instance, I was considering buying a few £4 bottles of red wine to try and limit the ridiculous waste of only having a glass-at-a-time. I bought one £4 a while ago and goodness me it was shocking. So I want good wine in glass form — and that’s Inspired Wine.

One point: I should probably have bought the Carafe Pack:

I have discovered that Carafes — or jugs — are a must with boxed wine especially if you’re aiming to serve more than one glass, as I was when my parents popped over. I ended up having to take each glass up to the box, press the little valve and wait. Hardly difficult, but, you know, it would have been useful to have had a container.

The Inspired Wine team offer a £9.99 Carafe pack that contains a 250ml and 500ml Carafe. Yeah. At the time of ordering that came across as a bit of a … well, a bit unnecessary. An extra tenner? On top of the £35 which, including delivery, tops out above £40? No. Not when you’re unproven to me.

Still. I should have done it. I think I’ll do it next time.

It’d be a lot easier.

Anyway if you’re looking for wine, check out Inspired Wine — I’m thoroughly delighted with my purchase.

Let me know what you think.

Categories
Observations

It’s been too long: I’m back!

Thanks for your patience, dear reader. It’s been too long, I know. Way too long.

Eagle-eyed readers might have guessed at the cause — we’ve had a baby. Not just any baby, no. This is Baby Number Two (“BNT” as it’s apparently referred to by knowing mothers).

It was a good birth — more on that in another post — and I’m delighted to say that both mother and baby are fine. We now have two boys: Archie and Freddie.

Baby Number Two is a bit of a challenge though.

You see, we’d just got into a pretty good routine with Archie. We could go out for lunch, I could take him out for the afternoon then do dinner at Zizzi, bring him back, bath, bed, job done. He loved it. I loved it. My wife really enjoyed the break. Things were going swimmingly. We knew how to do this parenting thing.

When you throw another baby into the mix, things get seriously complicated. First off, the baby needs feeding regularly. Every 3-4 hours at a minimum. That’s around-the-clock. And feeding isn’t a simple process, especially in the initial stages. The baby doesn’t have that much energy or ability to take in a lot of milk to begin with so that’s quite a bit of work. Trying to manage the requirements of the toddler simultaneously can be seriously challenging, especially when he’s getting frustrated that no one will play with him.

It’s a lot of work, especially when you’re working to a service level of sorts. My wife thinks it’s ridiculous that I apply business terminology to home life — I’m not that bad — but you know, we’re working to deliver a good experience for both children. That involves giving the requisite attention, stimulation and so on.

BNT would be easy if you simply left the other one to cry. My wife wouldn’t need any help from me or our family.

But that’s not the way we’re operating so it’s been quite full-on.

The baby’s almost 7 weeks now and things are a little bit more predictable. My wife and I are able to get a bit more sleep. The baby is sleeping longer. Archie has been through another bout of teething (shocking) and we’re out the other end.

Which is why I have time to write this text!

So thank you for your patience. Let’s get started once again.

Categories
Observations

The continuing saga: I found my shirts & suit…

Remember I lost a large amount of suits and a suit on the train the other week?

They’ve turned up. Very strange. But utterly good news. Here’s the podcast on that topic:

Categories
Observations

I’ve now lost two suits on the train, in two weeks!

I really don’t know what I was doing. Perhaps it was a subconscious desire to buy a lot more suits that caused me to leave two perfectly good bespoke suits on the train.

You can hear all about this in the inaugural Pursuit of Quality podcast:

Yes, that’s me speaking. I tried to keep it as clean as I could, given the raw frustration I was experiencing!

Categories
Observations

Where are my shirts? I ordered them on Saturday!

I ordered 10 shirts from Hawes & Curtis, the shirtmakers, on Saturday afternoon. They were off-the-peg ones — and what’s more, they were in stock. I know this, because the stupid Hawes & Curtis website made me click through reams of pages like a performing dog, searching for 16.5″ x 36″ shirts that were actually in stock.

WHAT, by the way, IS THE FLIPPING POINT OF DISPLAYING PRODUCTS THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY IN STOCK WHEN I’M TRYING TO BUY FROM YOU? GET A DECENT E-COMMERCE ENGINE.

Or better yet, stop messing around with your own clearly sub-standard back-end order processing system and just get Amazon to do it?

Here’s my problem: I ordered the shirts on Saturday, right? I expected them to arrive on Tuesday morning.

I gave Hawes & Curtis the benefit of the doubt — no, actually, I thought there’d be no-way they’d be able to get the shirts to me on Monday morning. That would entail them running an operation on Sunday night and, you know, being good at logistics. Like Amazon.

Instead I assumed the shirts would arrive on Tuesday. That’s bearable. But really, in 2012, if Amazon can get almost anything to me next day guaranteed by 10am, why can’t you?

There’s really no excuse.

If you can’t figure out a way to deliver the shirts to me this way, Hawes & Curtis, then seriously — dump your existing processes — and get Amazon to handle it all for you.

I spent £110 on shirts — a good deal, if you ask me — and then I saw the silly £9.95 (or thereabouts) postage fee.

I did my very best fake smile when I saw that.

Thanks for nothing, I thought to myself.

Then I remembered there was a special offer displayed on the frontage of the website. Use the coupon code ‘postage’ and your postage fee is reduced to £4.95. Woop. I thought I might as well do that, given the fact it would save me five pounds and produce no other benefit. I’d rather have paid £9.95 to have had the shirts ON MONDAY.

It’s not especially important to me. I wasn’t depending on Hawes & Curtis for the delivery, because I know I can’t.

Online shops like these are really no better than an eBay equivalent. You HOPE they got the order on time. You HOPE they, you know, could be bothered to get out of bed and process it. You HOPE they actually made it to the post office on time before the last post and you HOPE you might even get the product by the end of the week. If you’re lucky.

I really do wonder how long the market will tolerate the likes of these services simply limping along, delivering middle of the road ‘whatever’ service?

Let’s be clear: I haven’t been wronged by Hawes & Curtis. My expectations have been entirely met — I expected this. If anything, I think I’m surprised by how dependent I have become on Amazon.

I now actively shop according to the Amazon Prime listings (I’m a “Prime” customer — which means delivery is ‘free’ and in most cases, next day — or just a wee bit extra to have it guaranteed by 10am etc). I will favour one supplier above another if Amazon fulfils the order. That is, if Amazon has the product sitting in their own warehouse ready to ship to me. Because I know that Amazon doesn’t screw it up. They’ve got the flow. They’re shipping millions of products a week. The Post Office knows them very, very well. So do the courier firms they work with. The whole thing is a beautifully oiled machine as far as I’m concerned.

Unfortunately Amazon is making everyone else look really, really bad — for me, anyway.

Forget the dumbing down and the disappearing High Street thread we’re all being fed by the mainstream media. What about the disappearing e-commerce world? 😉 I don’t intend ever bothering with Hawes & Curtis online ordering again. It was almost a novel shopping and check-out experience — it was, in a funny way, quite nice to be exposed to the ridiculous next-next-give-us-your-life-story process.

Why do you need my address? Why do you need my sodding CCV2 card number? Why do you need me to make a username and password? Amazon already have all of this. I can order in ONE CLICK! Come on!

So dear, dear me. The seamless Amazon experience has made me wholly intolerant to any other service that doesn’t either exactly equal the basic Amazon service (e.g. dispatched next day — and I mean NEXT DAY) or involves a chap getting on a bike and hand delivering the product.

I wonder how many Hawes & Curtis customers would pay to have someone bike the shirts to them for a fixed fee of, I dunno, £45? I’d have done it. I just want it done, you see. I don’t want to have to THINK about stuff that isn’t important.

Waiting for my shirts to arrive is an exception that — I’m sorry to admit — niggles at me. It’s the inefficiency of it all that seriously irks me.

Consider this: I placed the order on Saturday afternoon at about 1.30pm. The payment was immediately verified and charged to my card. And then nothing happened, right?

I am willing to bet that NOTHING happened at the Hawes & Curtis end until Monday morning. At some point on Monday morning, somebody will have checked the orders — or whatever — and realised they’d got a request from me. They’ll have messed around checking email and staring at the wall and resetting their desktop screensavers until midday. Then they’ll have picked the shirts and packed them. Then they’ll have either left my package alone or they’ll have dumped it into the postal system that evening, probably at last post, right?

I know I’m making huge, huge assumptions and probably causing a few folk at Hawes & Curtis to seriously question my sanity at this point, but run with me. If my package didn’t arrive TODAY — Tuesday — that means they clearly didn’t ship it yesterday. OR it means they’re sending it via second class post. Which means… well that’s anyone’s guess. Or they’re sending it via some cheapo manner. Or it didn’t make the post on Monday.

Whatever. The point is, if *I* had been fulfilling the order from my home — personally — I’d have got it to the Post Office for 10am on Monday so they could have to my customer on Tuesday morning.

It’s worth pointing out again, for the sake of the team at H&K — I’m a fan. That’s why I bought the shirts in the first place. I own about 20 other H&K shirts (most of which I lost by forgetting my dry cleaning on the train last week, hence the bulk purchase — but that’s another story).

I write this post to highlight the changing nature of the consumer. I’m not a typical consumer. I’m far too geeky for that. But the rest of society will catch up at some point in the next few years — and when they do, they’ll have absolutely no tolerance for anything that doesn’t deliver precisely like Amazon.

Categories
General

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