Comments A particularly militant anti-smoker doused his girlfriend with the contents of a fire extinguisher on Sunday. The 42-year-old German lost it after his squeeze refused to stop smoking in his apartment. You applauded and derided him:

I gave up the weed years ago and have periodically felt smugly superior for my triumph. Alas, this twit has definitively shown that brains and backy-free are not necessarily a guaranteed pairing.

OTOH, One of those kid happy super-soakers might have been the preferred attack vector here. Certainly would have been easier to clean up.

Mike Morris

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Surely a more proportional response would have been a conversation along the lines of:

Him: "I really don't like smoking, do you mind not smoking in my flat please."

Her. "Sod off."

Him: "If you don't stop smoking in here, I'll have to ask you to leave. If you are hideously addicted, then just go outside."

Her: "Sod off."

Him: "You're dumped."

Of course, the fire extinguisher is a lot funnier...

Anonymous Coward

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It seems the young lady was put out.

Fluffykins

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Good on him for the theory, but a bit dimwitted in practice, doing it in his own flat.

Those powder extinguishers are awful - I hear that if one is used in a computer room, every computer has to be replaced, as the powder gets everywhere (including inside power supplies, over components, etc) and can't be cleaned off effectively. Bleargh.

Ian Ferguson

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He's better off without the recalcitrant cow who won't accede to a request not to smoke in *his* house.

She's better off without the hair trigger nutjob who lets off a powder extinguisher in his own house.

World's better off not having those two stressing each other out.

Bit of a result, really. Shame about the cleaning bills.

Anonymous Coward

Ocado has issued a warning about a serious theoretical threat: phony Ocado delivery men might trick their way into your house. Maybe. Accordingly, its "security-conscious" (paranoid?) customers can request the vehicle registration number and the name of the driver shortly before the delivery. You had your theories, and your tin-foil hats:

Bloody hell, a company tries to offer a useful service to its customers and all you can do is whinge.

Ocado delivery men bring the shopping into your kitchen. I imagine that if if any scam is to be conducted its around getting access to someone's car keys. I expect most people who use them get their delivery same time each week. Therefore if I were a scumbag thief who wanted to steal someone's nice merc or bmw, and to do so I needed to get access to the keys, what better way than being the ocado delivery showing up an hour early. The drivers often have an assistant so the scam gets more of you further into the house compared to a meter reader. Handy if you need to use a bit of threat and force to get the keys.

if ocado abuse the mobile number lists they collect then they will very quickly piss off their customers - a demographic you probably wouldn't want to upset.

Anonymous Coward

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The only way one of these "fake vans" could turn up at a particular house when they were expecting a delivery would be if somewhere in their organisation there is a leak of data. So this whole announcement sounds to me like Ocado are not certain about the security of their site or data.

It'd be a good scam actually, if someone in their warehouse got hold of a delivery schedule for a van and passed it to a "mate", who went round with the "fake van" and robbed the various houses on the route before the real van came around.

Andy Worth

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How about they back the truck up to your door, beat you up and steal everyhing you have into the van?? its going to look a lot less dodgy than a man in a suit (salesman fake) running from your house loading tvs into his BMW.

Anonymous Coward

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So this is a threat that Ocado have "identified" (shouldn't that be "dreamed up"), presumably without ever having seen one single incident. I suppose they would say that "well, it's possible".

It seems to be to be a manipulative way to gain a USP - Unique Selling Proposition. Until of course all the other home delivery outfits latch on, so it'll only be a few weeks or months before they're all at it.

What this means is that, with absolutely no evidence that this has ever happened, their customers have now been made afraid of another way that baddies could mug/rob/con them. They've increased the overall level of fear for a small and temporary increase in their marketing reach - I hope they're proud of themselves.

Pete

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As a scam this fails on so many levels...

1. When I receive a home delivery I'm asked to verify the contents of the crates and sign off that I have received my shopping. Unless the scammers are receiving details about my order they are not going to get that right.

2. I would be alerted to the scam the moment the real delivery arrives.

On the plus side I would have 2 loads of shopping for the price of 1!!! Sounds like a win for the consumer to me.

Andrew Moore

A US Marilyn Monroe expert mistakenly identified a nude shot of Madonna as one of the deceased sex icon and has received a kicking from all quarters since. You broke out the old jokes (hey, they're the best ones):

I don't blame the poor chap - it's not like anybody looks at the face, now, is it?

Jason Togneri

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Are you seriously telling me that Mr Nicastro spent all that time examining that photo and didn't notice the modern cars in the background? Even from the smaller image in the link I could tell they weren't late 1950's models.

Good grief.

Tim Brown

There were cars in the picture? There was a road? Etc. etc.

Not quite sure sir, let me take this round back, I've got some, er, special glasses back there. Back in a minute or three...

Gareth

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"...and after four months researching the striking pose..."

Wow! I'm sure this guy must be blind by now - or at least have one arm much larger than the other!

Paris because, um, do I have to spell it out?

GettinSadda

A drunken South Korean man stole, killed and attempted to cook his landlady's Chihuahua, but managed to set his clothes on fire in the process. Firemen and police arrived on the scene, and the pooch poacher was arrested and charged with theft. He said he did it because he was hungry. Yes, clearly.

I lived in Korea for two years as an English teacher. While it is true that some Koreans eat dog, it's supposed to be a special breed that's raised for the purpose, and it's also not as prevalent as stereotypes make it out to be. In fact, there is a portion of Koreans who believe that eating dog is bad luck.

The others though think it's good for "stamina" by which they mean fido = viagra.

Maybe the old bloke was randy for his landlady, or was short on rent money.

Paul F

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Stereotypes are never funny! I mean really, it's one thing to poke fun at Koreans and drunks, and even drunken Koreans, but the Chihuahua is a kind, loving, intelligent, albeit intensly annoying pet, and its demise is no laughing matter!

Shame!

Barry Rueger

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Poor man. I bet he's in the doghouse now.

Ferry Boat

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Everyone's had the late night boozy munchies...

"Now, let'sh see ... boil th' water ... add to Not Poodle ... nah, that'sh not right ... wossat noise?"

Jon Green

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My dad and some colleagues went on a fishing trip to a slightly rural area. One of the colleagues was from Korea. The first day they got their, said Korean said: "I'll make supper tonight, there are quite a few stray dogs around here."

Needless to say, he NEVER got asked to make supper.

Smart man. I find the same thing usually works with haggis substituted. ®