Has the country gone mad?

This morning I went to the opticians for two pairs of glasses - one of the "fast fit places". The price quoted in the window of the one hour optican was 129 for a pair and the second 50% discount.
After a few minutes I got to a sales person who went through the options. The price steadily rose (as I new it would) for the likes of scratch resistant, tinted, glass!!! screws!!!!). Any way I agreed the price (389 euro). Then I was asked if I wanted to collect them in an hour, this afternoon or tomorrow. I told her that I was here now so would wait for the hour whereupon she requested an additional 10 euro.

When i queried this charge I was told that 10 euro gave me priority over others!! I pointed to the window sign which stated a 1 hour service and I pointed to the 4 "glazers" standing around doing nothing.

I mean... they were going to be working on my glasses any way as there were no other customers. I was told that these were the rules and they could not be changed.

So I told her to ..........

Surprisingly she offered me a 10 euro discount and I now have both pairs.

This leads me to my second point.....if fuel prices are dropping, if work is getting short, if companies are crying out for cash why are all the building materials going up by 8 - 20% (radiators, cylinders etc etc), last year we were told that it was because china was building the olympics, whats the excuse now?

the main excuse for materials going up is that the cost of hiring direct labour (to staff your builders providers) is not going down (due to statutory wage agreements) and there are very few materials actually made in ireland or at least the raw materials are not. If we rely on imports for everything the price is always going to be outside of our control irrespective of how our economy is.

What about Quinn Radiators? where are they made?

surely as we import everything, and the euro gets stronger, then the price differiental between us and the North shouldnt exist they will pay more for our imports and we will pay less. Take out the small time lag and currency flucations shouldnt really matter ?

locksmith said:

What about Quinn Radiators? where are they made?

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In the north, not under our wage agreements

locksmith said:

What about Quinn Radiators? where are they made?

Click to expand...

Newport, Wales

I was in B&Q Nottingham in the summer and paying £3 for an 8x4 plasterboard....around €12 here.
Did a full kitchen refurb for my sister who gave me a money float I literally couldnt spend, everything is a fraction of the cost that it is in Ireland.....Then I come back to reallity and have crippling account bills at the end of the month for paltry amounts of materials....makes me want to weep.

I heard from a friend that Chorus NTL are now charging tenants to disconnect when they are moving apartments. Is this usual practice.

Purchased two excellent pairs of reading glasses at a market in France for €5 recently. Every bit as good if not better than the expensive pair bought and subsidised by the Dept. of Social Welfare two years ago.