Amazon

[john]

For about 10 years I have been buying quite a lot of stuff from Amazon and held the site in great regard.

But a recent dispute has led to me being considerably out of pocket and caused me a lot of loss of time trying to sort the problem out.

Looking on the internet reveals that Amazon has a lot of unhappy customers and the company is featured on tonights BBC Watchdog.

Anyone else had any problems?

[Hope]

For about 10 years I have been buying quite a lot of stuff from Amazon and held the site in great regard.

But a recent dispute has led to me being considerably out of pocket and caused me a lot of loss of time trying to sort the problem out.

Looking on the internet reveals that Amazon has a lot of unhappy customers and the company is featured on tonights BBC Watchdog.

Anyone else had any problems?

The only problems I've had with Amazon has actually been with the producers of items - stuff I have pre-ordered only for the publisher/manufacturer to fail to fulfil their own delivery timetable.

However, I am less than happy to be paying for 'Prime' service.  Rather like with Spotify, I joined Prime and Spotify early in their 'lives' when they were both free services.  I have no problem with charging new customers but it's a pity that the original members can't remain free customers.

[floo]

For about 10 years I have been buying quite a lot of stuff from Amazon and held the site in great regard.

But a recent dispute has led to me being considerably out of pocket and caused me a lot of loss of time trying to sort the problem out.

Looking on the internet reveals that Amazon has a lot of unhappy customers and the company is featured on tonights BBC Watchdog.

Anyone else had any problems?

We have had no problems and order stuff on a very regular basis from Amazon, particularly books for our Kindles.

[Rhiannon]

I'm a member of their Prime service and use their Subscribe and Save scheme. I think it's fair to say that without them I'd struggle - I need to buy a lot of chemical-free stuff and get it all through them in one hit. I also buy lots of books, and use it for emergency stuff for the kids - when I get two day's notice one of them needs to be a Pharoah or needs a present for a birthday party. On the rare occasion things have gone wrong it's been dealt with quickly by using their on-line chat facility.

Their marketplace sellers aren't always so reliable though, but even then I've purchased things from the U.S. And Germany quite frequently with no bother.

[Owlswing]

I have used Amamzon on quite a few occasions for a variety of items and (so far) have had no problems.

John, as I don't, any longer, have a TV could you post a summary of the Watchdog Amazon item, please?

[Rhiannon]

I have used Amamzon on quite a few occasions for a variety of items and (so far) have had no problems.

John, as I don't, any longer, have a TV could you post a summary of the Watchdog Amazon item, please?

You'll probably be able to view it on iPlayer on the BBC website.

[Owlswing]

I have used Amamzon on quite a few occasions for a variety of items and (so far) have had no problems.

John, as I don't, any longer, have a TV could you post a summary of the Watchdog Amazon item, please?

You'll probably be able to view it on iPlayer on the BBC website.

Thanks - never thought of that! most of the time not having a TV is a blessing - in this case . . . .

[Bubbles]

I have used Amamzon on quite a few occasions for a variety of items and (so far) have had no problems.

John, as I don't, any longer, have a TV could you post a summary of the Watchdog Amazon item, please?

You'll probably be able to view it on iPlayer on the BBC website.

Thanks - never thought of that! most of the time not having a TV is a blessing - in this case . . . .

 

No telly?

How come?

[floo]

I have used Amamzon on quite a few occasions for a variety of items and (so far) have had no problems.

John, as I don't, any longer, have a TV could you post a summary of the Watchdog Amazon item, please?

You'll probably be able to view it on iPlayer on the BBC website.

Thanks - never thought of that! most of the time not having a TV is a blessing - in this case . . . .

 

No telly?

How come?

Our middle daughter and family don't have a TV.

[Shaker]

Thanks - never thought of that! most of the time not having a TV is a blessing - in this case . . . .

The last time I moved house there was a period of about ten days or a fortnight or so when I was still getting all the new stuff sorted and I was without a telly - and I loved it. To this day I watch very little; there's so much garbage, and so many better things to do with your time.

[Rhiannon]

TVs are for shooting storm troopers on.

[floo]

We don't watch much TV. When we do it is often news and current affairs programmes. We usually watch dramas etc on the TV's iplayer as they are usually on past our bedtime of 9pm.

[Owlswing]

I have used Amamzon on quite a few occasions for a variety of items and (so far) have had no problems.

John, as I don't, any longer, have a TV could you post a summary of the Watchdog Amazon item, please?

You'll probably be able to view it on iPlayer on the BBC website.

Thanks - never thought of that! most of the time not having a TV is a blessing - in this case . . . .

 

No telly?

How come?

For several years I didn't need to watch much TV as I got everything that happewned just by listening toi the incessant chatter at work and my viewing gradually reduced until I was only watching University Challenge (in which I competed against my supervisor) and QI.

When I was left, by people in the house moving away, the only person with the TV license I decided that I could do without the TV more thanI could do without the £100.

[Harrowby Hall]

Back to Amazon. (Aren't I a spoilsport!)

I subscribe to Amazon Prime and I have also extended my subscription to my son so that his family receive its benefits at no further cost.

I find Amazon a godsend. I am very satisfied with its service. As far as problems are concerned, when I have had problems (often my own fault) the company has treated me very fairly.

On one occasion I ordered a dvd, realised it was the wrong one, contacted Amazon to organise its return in replacement for the correct dvd and then received a reply telling me to keep the incorrectly ordered item and that the item I wanted would be posted to me that day.

If there are problems Amazon is obliged to conform to what used to be called the Distance Selling Regulations - these have now been updated in new legislation. As someone else has pointed out, Amazon may not necessarily be the seller but the "fulfiller" of the contract.

[BashfulAnthony]

Thanks - never thought of that! most of the time not having a TV is a blessing - in this case . . . .

The last time I moved house there was a period of about ten days or a fortnight or so when I was still getting all the new stuff sorted and I was without a telly - and I loved it. To this day I watch very little; there's so much garbage, and so many better things to do with your time.

I like to keep up with the news, the odd comedy show, any animal programmes, documentaries, and sport, especially cricket.  None of that is garbage; and indeed they serves to “inform, educate and entertain,”   as the sainted John Reith had it.  TV surely provides the most effective way to achieve those things.

[Shaker]

Thanks - never thought of that! most of the time not having a TV is a blessing - in this case . . . .

The last time I moved house there was a period of about ten days or a fortnight or so when I was still getting all the new stuff sorted and I was without a telly - and I loved it. To this day I watch very little; there's so much garbage, and so many better things to do with your time.

I like to keep up with the news, the odd comedy show, any animal programmes, documentaries, and sport, especially cricket.  None of that is garbage; and indeed they serves to “inform, educate and entertain,”   as the sainted John Reith had it.  TV surely provides the most effective way to achieve those things.

Comedies - certain ones at any rate -, animal programmes and documentaries I'm in full agreement with. Neither news nor sport interest me in the slightest so I don't bother with those.

Whether TV provides the most effective way to achieve Reith's noble ambition is highly arguable. In these days of slashed budgets, I'd say there's less chance of that than ever before. I was having a discussion not ever so long ago about the almost total absence from today's screens of things like Kenneth Clark's Civilization or Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man. It's important not to don the rose-tinted spectacles, I realise; such programmes were exceptional landmarks in their own time and of course they were surrounded by a load of crap of their own day. But I don't see anything even remotely of the same scope, scale and ambition being made nowadays - the same old excuse is always trotted out that there isn't enough money. The BBC can't keep going all the channels that it currently operates - BBC Three is due for the chop, and not too many weeks ago Bruce Forsyth was saying that along with the aforementioned channel he'd get rid of BBC Four as well (one of the channels I like best and watch most). I don't buy into the argument that in the era of hundreds of channels as well as umpteen other non-TV sources of entertainment audiences have changed and there'd be no audience for such things today.

If Lord Reith were around today and shown tonight's TV schedule, or perhaps better still given a Sky remote and shown how to channel-hop, I think we can all guess what his reaction would be.

[BashfulAnthony]

Thanks - never thought of that! most of the time not having a TV is a blessing - in this case . . . .

The last time I moved house there was a period of about ten days or a fortnight or so when I was still getting all the new stuff sorted and I was without a telly - and I loved it. To this day I watch very little; there's so much garbage, and so many better things to do with your time.

I like to keep up with the news, the odd comedy show, any animal programmes, documentaries, and sport, especially cricket.  None of that is garbage; and indeed they serves to “inform, educate and entertain,”   as the sainted John Reith had it.  TV surely provides the most effective way to achieve those things.

Comedies - certain ones at any rate -, animal programmes and documentaries I'm in full agreement with. Neither news nor sport interest me in the slightest so I don't bother with those.

Whether TV provides the most effective way to achieve Reith's noble ambition is highly arguable. In these days of slashed budgets, I'd say there's less chance of that than ever before. I was having a discussion not ever so long ago about the almost total absence from today's screens of things like Kenneth Clark's Civilization or Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man. It's important not to don the rose-tinted spectacles, I realise; such programmes were exceptional landmarks in their own time and of course they were surrounded by a load of crap of their own day. But I don't see anything even remotely of the same scope, scale and ambition being made nowadays - the same old excuse is always trotted out that there isn't enough money. The BBC can't keep going all the channels that it currently operates - BBC Three is due for the chop, and not too many weeks ago Bruce Forsyth was saying that along with the aforementioned channel he'd get rid of BBC Four as well (one of the channels I like best and watch most). I don't buy into the argument that in the era of hundreds of channels as well as umpteen other non-TV sources of entertainment audiences have changed and there'd be no audience for such things today.

If Lord Reith were around today and shown tonight's TV schedule, or perhaps better still given a Sky remote and shown how to channel-hop, I think we can all guess what his reaction would be.

You are correct about the likes of Clark and Bronowski; but there are a lot of instructive and acceptable documentaries about many things, for me particularly in historical output.  They may not reach great intellectual heights, but they still can offer much.  As always, if you skip round the tat there is some good stuff, as has always been so.

[Harrowby Hall]

The word of the year, apparently, is "binge-watch".

I didn't realise that when I watched three episodes - one after the other last Sunday - of Season 4 of Grey's Anatomy on Amazon Prime tv.

[Shaker]

You are correct about the likes of Clark and Bronowski; but there are a lot of instructive and acceptable documentaries about many things, for me particularly in historical output.  They may not reach great intellectual heights, but they still can offer much.  As always, if you skip round the tat there is some good stuff, as has always been so.

The last sentence is very true - one of the advantages of something like Sky is that I can set aside a certain period of time (for me it's usually on a Sunday) to go through the planner and pick out for recording programmes and films for the coming week. I can't simply sit in front of the box and veg out for hours at a stretch - when I watch something for the most part it's because I've deliberately chosen to do so, most often something I've recorded specifically.

[BashfulAnthony]

You are correct about the likes of Clark and Bronowski; but there are a lot of instructive and acceptable documentaries about many things, for me particularly in historical output.  They may not reach great intellectual heights, but they still can offer much.  As always, if you skip round the tat there is some good stuff, as has always been so.

The last sentence is very true - one of the advantages of something like Sky is that I can set aside a certain period of time (for me it's usually on a Sunday) to go through the planner and pick out for recording programmes and films for the coming week. I can't simply sit in front of the box and veg out for hours at a stretch - when I watch something for the most part it's because I've deliberately chosen to do so, most often something I've recorded specifically.

As I've got older and less energetic I have treated myself to the full range of tv available, and I have to admit to looking at a lot.  The thing is, wherever you look there is something of interest to catch the eye and I sometimes find myself up a good part of the night watching stuff I can't bear to leave! 

[Shaker]

The word of the year, apparently, is "binge-watch".

I didn't realise that when I watched three episodes - one after the other last Sunday - of Season 4 of Grey's Anatomy on Amazon Prime tv.

I think I'm at a point now (late to the party as ever) where I'm teetering on the brink of becoming that forlorn creature, the box-set bore. Most of them have passed me by completely so far - I've never seen The Sopranos, West Wing, The Wire and have never caught a second of Game of Thrones, although that last one especially is something I want to try out - but having seen season one of True Detective, which I thought was and is one of the greatest things ever made in the history of television, and more recently Breaking Bad, I think full-blown box-set borehood will very soon be upon me.

[Nearly Sane]

In part the very expansion of the media open to us will smooth out the heights. We produce a lot more and ground breaking becomes harder to do. As BA notes there is a lot of good stuff out there. Even as a fairly low brow take Dominic Sandbrook's doc last night on bbc2 was at least interestingly argued.  Some of the veneration is the shock of the what once was new; I am never I think going to watch something I will like as much as Edge of Darkness or The Singing Detective  as a drama, even though I can still appreciate stuff. All of nature documentaries feel like Life On Earth again, still welcome but not going to prompt my mother to ask me 'this evolution thing, it's true then?'.


The medium of TV has changed beyond the ability of those watching or making to control. It is still changing and changing quicker but the net allows us to indulge in ever more precise segmentation. Grand views are restricted to generic interests because of choice which is a boon and a yoke.


Things are not so much worse but different and there is still fun and games to be had.

[BashfulAnthony]

I referred to the "tat" on telly, but it sounds very pompous:  one person's tat is another's enjoyable viewing, even if it is tat!  What would telly be if it didn't cater for all tastes?  Fortunately, with today's prodigious number of channels there is room for all.  And I have to admit to looking at the occasional B-movie Western  -  reverting to childhood there!

[Nearly Sane]

I struggle with film nowadays. It seems arbitrary, short and simplistic in comparison to TV. The spectacle of the big screen seems lost and the intimacy I used to find in a cinema, nothing as blackboard scrapingly intimate as can be achieved in a long TV series. But I will binge watch wallpaper, the formulaic delights of something like Elementary supported by quite how well the formula is done. And even the delights of I, Claudius are simplistic when looked at in comparison to the Once More With Feeling episode of Buffy

[Shaker]

I struggle with film nowadays. It seems arbitrary, short and simplistic in comparison to TV. The spectacle of the big screen seems lost and the intimacy I used to find in a cinema, nothing as blackboard scrapingly intimate as can be achieved in a long TV series.

I know what you mean, but I wouldn't give up hope. In the past few months alone I've seen jaw-dropping films such as Terrence Malick's Tree of Life and Lars von Trier's Melancholia - very far indeed from everyone's cup of tea, I admit, but to me stunningly ambitious and in both cases nearly perfectly realised. There are still directors out there of vision and huge ambition. They have to fight tooth and nail to make the kinds of film they want to make - Malick seems to average a film per decade, more or less - but they're still there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0