Dennis

My heart always sinks when I see a package is going to be 'delivered' to me my DPD. Today's shambles, the most recent of many, involved my driver 'Muhammad' saying in the app he was 15 min. away from my house when he actually got there much quicker than that, as I raced to the house to be there for the delivery. I ended up missing him by four bl**dy minutes and he didn't have the decency to phone or text to ask for the delivery PIN, so I got 'no delivery, driver couldn't get PIN'. How pathetic. Didn't wait a few mins, don't even know if he even parked there, false info in the app, no one to complain to by phone or chat (don't use the chatbot, it'll make you want to k*ll yourself). So I have to reschedule. DPD sucks.

The Reading gyms - Calcot, Basingstoke, Caversham - are all now pretty awful. Calcot is marginally better than the other two b/c newer, but going downhill fast. The bathrooms are terrible, they smell, the toilets are never working, litter everywhere, showers never working (no hot water, switches broken), even the gym equipment is showing its age. What a pity, I hope management can do something. I'll be looking around at other options.

I have access to 3 gyms in my area, and generally speaking I would say that the equipment is good although they constantly move it around the rooms, once a week. You can never find what you want because they’re constantly rearranging the equipment. No reason whatsoever, absolutely no idea why they do it. Also, they don’t seem to understand what people use, so one of the least popular machines is the leg curl and there are two of those, and one of the most popular machines is the leg extension and there is *one* of those. Pretty stupid. But much worse is the fact that the state of the bathrooms in all of the gyms I attend is shocking. It is always shocking. One of them has had no hot water for months, so I’m reduced to a cold shower, but all of the bathrooms are filthy, they stink, one of the bathrooms has a constant smell of sewage under the floor, the toilets are a mess, and there is rubbish everywhere. I know that customers are probably complete animals these days, but the fact is the management needs to keep the bathrooms completely spick and span. I actually worry about catching a disease there, they are so filthy and disgusting.

Sainsbury's Calcot, Reading, has been my go-to for years, but it has steadily done downhill, esp. since COVID. It is tatty and uninviting, in desperate need of refurbishment. The so-called 'Hot Food Bar', which does sell some nice things when it has any, rarely has full shelves. It replaced a previous, much better hot food counter but they've obviously sacked people and now they might as well close the whole bar down. Very rarely any new and/or exciting products in the aisles. Same old same old. Boring, tatty, on the slide. Probably will start using another supermarket more regularly.

Mydentist Tilehurst, Reading: Absolutely shocking. Hurt my son when cleaning his teeth, and when we stopped using them they kept sending unwanted text message reminders and STILL send them after a couple of years! I've reported them but they still will not stop, and even hung up on me when I complained after months of text message harassment. Avoid. UPDATE: ridiculous reply from Mydentist. They know exactly all the people they harass by phone - they have all the numbers on their database. They should't be harassing anyone! Needless to say my son doesn't need their support. We have a proper dentist to go to.