#oneaday Day 577: A non-comprehensive ranking of some slightly unusual crisps

Yesterday, we covered what I described as "regular-ass crisps". The crisps that you see that are just called "crisps", whether they're by Walkers or a supermarket's own brand. Thin slices of potato, deep fried and seasoned with some sort of flavouring powder.

But the crunchy snack sector is more than just regular-ass crisps, as anyone who had a lunchbox in the 1980s will know. There is a whole world of slightly unusual crisps out there, and today I wanted to celebrate some of my favourites — old and new — with another ranking.

To match yesterday, I will be choosing six slightly unusual types or flavours of crisps or crisp-adjacent snack (i.e. puffed corn snacks count) and ranking them in such a way that absolutely no-one will ever want to argue with me or tell me I'm wrong.

Let's begin!

6. Walkers Worcester Sauce

Now, I know this is technically a regular-ass crisp, but Worcester Sauce is also a "limited edition" flavour — although Walkers have done it so many times at this point that they might as well just make it part of the regular-ass lineup, because it's proven pretty much beyond a doubt at this point that people like it.

As for me, I like it a lot — it probably ranks above prawn cocktail, top of my regular-ass crisps ranking, if we're just talking about regular-ass crisps. But if we're talking about slightly unusual crisps, it ranks low because it's not especially unusual.

Flavour-wise, it does everything I like in a crisp or crisp-adjacent snack, which is to say it has enough sour flavour to make your cheeks turn inside out. If they'd just do Walkers Max, But Worcester Sauce Flavour, I think I'd die happy. From cholesterol-related heart failure.

5. Tangy Toms

I don't even know if you can get these any more (EDIT: you can), but these were a staple of the 1980s school lunchbox. Notable for being extremely cheap compared to regular-ass crisps, they also carried that super-sour artificial flavour that I like so much, but applied to a puffed corn snack rather than a potato chip. This time around, the flavour was supposedly tomato, but I ain't never tasted a tomato that tasted like Tangy Toms.

It was a good day any day these were in the lunchbox. I'm only ranking them so relatively low because the bag size was always a bit stingy, but I guess you get what you pay for when you're buying 10p crisps.

4. Wotsits Giant Prawn Cocktail flavour

Wotsits? Good. Prawn cocktail? Good. For a brief period in the '80s, you could get flavours of Wotsits other than the standard cheese, including beef and prawn cocktail, and they were both great, but got phased out after a while because we can't have nice things permanently, apparently. In more recent years, Wotsits have taken a cue from Cheetos with the Flamin' Hot flavour, which is good, but for their Giant variants (which are literallly just Wotsits, but bigger) they also reintroduced prawn cocktail.

And it's a good prawn cocktail flavour, in that it doesn't taste anything like prawns or Marie Rose sauce, but it is both delicious and dangerously addictive. I can happily demolish a big bag of these, and this is why I am fat. Better that than, like, heroin, though, right?

3. "Party Mix" from convenience stores

I don't know what brand makes this. I have a feeling it might be like a Happy Shopper own brand or something. But you hopefully know what I mean: comes in huge bags, contains a mix of all manner of different shaped potato and corn snacks, all liberally doused in flavouring powder, producing some of the most potent flavour explosions in the crunchy snacking space.

My main point of reference for these is that you can get them in the "ParcMarket" at Center Parcs, which I believe is technically a Co-Op, but I've also seen something similar in our local convenience store, which I believe is Happy Shopper-related. I think they even do a prawn cocktail one, which sounds like an exceedingly dangerous thing to provide me with a huge bag of.

2. Lay's All-dressed

I've had these precisely once in Canada and I've been kind of pining for them ever since. As the name suggests, they are supposedly "all of the flavours" on one crisp, and I'm not sure that quite comes across, but they are delicious.

Given that Lay's are basically the Walkers of North America (they're both owned by Pepsi), I'm surprised this particular flavour never made it over to the UK, because I think it would probably go down a storm here. I'll have to see if I can import some… although part of me is afraid to, just in case the second taste is more disappointing than the first!

1. Takis Fuego

A relatively recent discovery for me thanks to the fact our local convenience store carries them, these have quickly become my favourite crisp-adjacent snack of choice. For the unfamiliar, Takis are like what would happen if you rolled up a Dorito before cooking it. Their shape means they carry a lot of flavour, because there's flavour powder on all the rolled-up layers, and the Fuego flavour in particular is already pretty strong.

With an initial chilli kick, a bit of limey zing and a lingering heat, these probably aren't for everyone. But give me a choice of all the crispy things in the world, and I will probably gravitate towards these more often than anything else.

Conclusions? Crisps!

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#oneaday Day 576: A ranking of the regular-ass crisp flavours

Hello. I couldn't think of anything to write about today — at least not without threatening to be depressingly topical, which I'm keen to avoid — so I thought I'd fall back on something completely inoffensive and not at all controversial, which is my ranking of the regular-ass crisp flavours that you get in an average multipack.

For clarity, this means the following flavours:

Ready salted
Salt and vinegar
Cheese and onion
Roast chicken
Prawn cocktail
Smoky bacon

Now, the exact "goodness" of each of these varies according to manufacturer, but based on a sampling of two ends of the market — Walkers (a "prestige" brand of sorts) and Lidl "Snaktastic" own-brand — I feel pretty confident in my rankings. So let us begin immediately.

6. Cheese and onion

I will grant that I am biased in this regard, because I do not like onion or onion-flavoured things, but it continually mystifies me that this is, supposedly, the most popular crisp flavour in the United Kingdom, according to multiple surveys.

I wouldn't mind if it was a little bit cheesy, but I've decided to give these a chance on multiple occasions and simply cannot get past the revolting onion-ness of them, with the "cheese" part seemingly being totally overpowered by it.

By contrast, I absolutely love the sadly defunct beef and onion flavour crisps that Walkers used to do in the brown packets. Those, to me, didn't taste oniony at all, but the artificial beef flavour (which doesn't really taste like beef at all) came through perfectly well. But I don't think you can get those any more — I haven't seen them for a good while, anyway — so they're out of the rankings for now.

5. Ready salted

These may be ranked low on my list, but not because I don't like them; on the contrary, sometimes it's nice to have a simple salted flavour. They're just a bit dull though.

To my shame, on one occasion at primary school where I found I had a packet of ready salted crisps in my lunchbox, I became so inexplicably furious that I didn't have one of the "good" flavours that I crushed them angrily rather than eating them. I don't really know why I did that, and it's a memory I firmly wish I could eject from my long-term storage.

These days, I am not infuriated by ready salted crisps. But they are usually the last to go. Andie ranks them quite highly, though, so it's not as if they go to waste.

4. Smoky bacon

The next few are all a tough call to rank, as I specifically like all of them, but out of all of them, I think I'd probably put smoky bacon flavour at the bottom of the heap.

There's nothing wrong with smoky bacon and, like ready salted, the intense saltiness of the flavour is sometimes exactly what you're looking for in a crisp. But, when presented with an array of different crisp flavours to choose from, smoky bacon is rarely the one I reach for first.

3. Roast chicken

Likewise roast chicken. I rank this flavour slightly higher because it feels like you don't see these as often as you used to, and thus sometimes I will pick them as a "novelty" option.

There are also some truly excellent "luxury" roast chicken options available, with the one most people are likely familiar with being Walkers Sensations. To my recollection, the roast chicken flavour of these was the first to become widely available, and they are very good crisps.

They don't taste anything like chicken, of course, but very few crisp flavours do actually taste like their name — with the exception of ready salted and salt and vinegar, for obvious reasons.

2. Salt and vinegar

Salt and vinegar is one of my favourite crisp flavours. I particularly enjoy a strongly seasoned salt and vinegar crisp — the kind that is surprisingly, intensely sour. Regular old Walkers are decent in this regard, but I think the best salt and vinegar flavour outside of explicitly luxury brands like Kettle Chips is probably the Walkers Max ridged variants.

Crinkly crisps tend to have stronger flavours anyway, and when you have something that is already fairly pungent, like salt and vinegar, crinkling them and putting them on a thick crisp makes them even better.

It was a close-run thing between this and the top spot, I can tell you. But ultimately this is where the results fell.

1. Prawn cocktail

Another crisp flavour that has the dubious honour of not tasting anything like what it's supposed to, prawn cocktail crisps have always been, for me, the ultimate flavour. They combine everything I like about an artificial crisp flavour. You've got the saltiness. You've got the sourness of vinegar. You've got a touch of sweetness.

It all comes together to create a flavour that makes my mouth water to imagine. Prawn cocktail is an awesome flavour, regardless of what type of crisp it is applied to, and is pretty much always my top pick when given an array of different flavours to choose from.

So there you have it. Those are my rankings, and nothing you can do will change my mind. If you're lucky, I might rank some "unusual" flavours tomorrow!

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#oneaday Day 574: Characters, remastered

For today's doodle, I thought I would reimagine the "characters" that occasionally appear on this blog in a new style, courtesy of my new drawing tablet and the capabilities of Clip Studio Paint. I think they all probably need some refinement, but I enjoyed making this initial sketch, and each new thing I draw gives me some ideas on what I might need to focus on when developing my skills. I don't have any grand designs on becoming an illustrator or anything, but it would be fun to develop if not "technique" then at least "a distinctive style".

Honestly one of the biggest challenges is fundamentals! Drawing a circle is surprisingly hard! Drawing a circle with roughly equal pen pressure all the way around is even harder! (And, as you can see, I have consistently failed in this regard across the entire image.) Part of me wants to figure out a way to refine that somewhat, but another part of me feels like those individual quirks and "brush strokes" (of a sort) give a piece some individuality and a sense of identity — and that's where a distinctive personal style stems from.

I'm not 100% sure where all the characters came from, to be honest, other than "my own brain". Obviously there's the version of me, which is a little bit less fat than me and a lot cooler than me.

Phillipe (the one who is 80% mouth, and who will almost certainly get his cock out at some point) was primarily introduced to the blog as an homage to a fellow blogger and Twitter enthusiast first time around the #oneaday train — and I was pleased to note recently that he appears to have made something of a name for himself as a voice actor. The character wasn't intended to resemble him in any way, either looks- or personality-wise; he was just named after him, which I recall us all finding quite amusing, given that in stickman form, Phillipe was always the most wilfully offensive of all of them.

Alex, the redhead, has changed her style a bit from her stickman form, sporting some '80s frizzy hair instead of the straight bob she previously had. I primarily created her because I like redheads. She was often designed to be something of a "foil" or "straight man" to me, tending to be something of a voice of reason and rationality even when things were taking a turn for the bizarre. She has canonically slept with Phillipe on more than one occasion, however, much to her disgust.

Lucy, the blonde, I believe first came about in this post, albeit as a brunette. She was initially intended as an embodiment of mindlessly chipper retail workers who stick rigidly to a script even when it's abundantly clear that all you want is a cup of normal coffee and minimal interaction with other human beings. Over time, she developed into what I freely admit is a blonde stereotype of being a ditzy dumbass who is painfully naive about pretty much everything, but she's actually one of my favourite characters to draw because her overly exuberant personality encourages me to make her as expressive as possible. For her new look, I gave her a bit more detail in the bow that ties up her ponytail, her key identifying visual feature.

Other characters that have put in more occasional guest appearances, and who are not pictured above, tended to be more explicitly based on people I actually know. These four, though, I think have always subconsciously represented parts of myself.

The "me" character is, obviously, partly represented by my own self-image, with a little more generosity than I would usually provide myself with. Humour in past images and comics I've used "me" in tends to be at my expense, but I have also used "me" to express my thoughts, worries and feelings about things.

Alex, I think, represents part of me that wants to be cool and popular and liked. I'm not especially desperate for this or anything (although to be perfectly honest, some more friends who live nearby and actually care about me would be nice) but there is part of me that thinks "if I wasn't so fat, ugly, stupid, socially awkward, cripplingly self-conscious and generally inept at living on this planet, I'm sure I could be a riot at parties". Or, you know, something to that effect.

Lucy, then, represents the part of myself that acknowledges that I, myself, am indeed fairly dumb and naive about things one probably should know better about by the time one is 44 years old.

So that's that. You will be seeing a lot more of all of them, particularly once I figure out how to do full-body shots of each of them without them looking weird. That's something to figure out another day, though!

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#oneaday Day 573: Welcome to 2026

You get an old-school Paint.net sketch today as it's cold, I'm tired, I've just written 3,000 words about Wolfenstein 2009 (read 'em here!) and I have to work tomorrow. Also I can't be bothered to go upstairs to draw something on the tablet, even though I will have to go upstairs in order to go to bed at some point. Look, it's the first day of the new year, cut me some slack, okay?

New years are, of course, times for new beginnings and a sense of refreshment and renewal. As I've commented on before, there's no real magical reason that the last digit of the date increasing by one should have any real sort of "meaning", but it always does feel like a nice time to take stock of one's situation and figure out how one might want to improve one's lot, if indeed one is in a position where one's lot needs improving.

My lot does indeed need improving in numerous ways, so while I'm not sure I want to say that these are "new year's resolutions" as such, I do at least want to set out some things I want to achieve this year:

I will recommence dieting and stick to it for more than two weeks at a time. Two weeks appears to be something of a mental roadblock for me, so if I can survive past that, I can probably go for a lot longer. The latter half of the year hasn't really helped with all sorts of commitments that make sticking to a diet plan quite difficult, but new year, new you and all that, so both Andie and I have decided: starting from our next food shop (i.e. once all the remaining holiday "treats" are out of the house) we are both going to make a real go of it, as we could both really do with making that effort — me more than her by a considerable margin, I hasten to add.
I will get into the habit of doing some sort of daily exercise for at least 30 minutes. This, initially, will take two different forms: using my under-desk elliptical machine to give my legs a bit of a workout and, once we have Sorted The Spare Room Out, which is a job for the imminent future, using the at-home treadmill Andie bought a while back, but which neither of us have used all that much because there isn't really a good place to put it. Sorting The Spare Room Out will involve rearranging it in such a way that said treadmill can have a semi-permanent place to live, and thus we will both (hopefully) use it a lot more.
I will go to the doctor and see if they can do anything about my knee hurting. This is a lingering issue that is probably related to my lack of exercise and my weight problems, but it's got noticeably worse over the last couple of weeks, so I figure I should get it looked at properly.
I will make time to play the piano for at least half an hour at a time on at least three occasions per week. Long-term I will extend the individual sessions and aim for daily practice, but I am starting with a relatively humble goal that seems achievable.
I will do at least one piece of creative fiction writing per week.
I will practice my drawing with the tablet.
I will plan and begin writing an Evercade-related project that I've been milling over in my head for a long time.

There are probably some other things that I want to do, but I think that lot is a good starting point. Specific, measurable, attainable and all that nonsense. My overall "life situation" in terms of work, money and suchlike isn't in a terrible place right now, so it's the more "personal" side of things that I need to work on and fix. And while the "professional" and "financial" sides of things are comfortable, it would seem like a good time to make the "personal" comfortable too, non?

Oh, also, happy new year.

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#oneaday Day 568: Doodling is fun

I'm going to make no attempt to convince you that my doodlings are in any way "good", because I know that I have precisely zero technique and don't do things "properly", but man, doodling is fun! I just spent a little while fiddling around with Clip Studio Paint (which I bought a copy of, because if I've got a tablet I might as well use some good software with it) and that resulted in the above nonsense. There wasn't any real thought behind it other than an experiment with how to bring the cartoonish representation of me into a slightly more "detailed" space than the stickmen I've been drawing up until now.

Don't get me wrong, I love stickmen and I doubt I will be abandoning them completely, but when one has better drawing tools at one's disposal, one inevitably feels like one should be doing a little "more" with them. And so we have the above.

With the above images, I was channelling some of my past cartoon-drawing experience — specifically that of my time in secondary school, doodling with my friend Ed in our "rough books". The styles I've experimented with over the years have a few influences, but one I keep coming back to is inspired to a certain degree by Jim Davis' work on Garfield — particularly in the area of the eyes. I've always liked Garfield-style eyes as two slightly "protruding" spheres on a character's face; it's not at all realistic, but it can be immensely expressive, which is why I think I've always been rather fond of it as a style.

The uncoloured top-right doodle in the above is somewhat akin to how Ed and I drew our shared "Edlock Holmes and Watson" cartoon strips when we weren't doing them as stickmen (which, eventually, we adopted as the "primary" style) — big noses, eyes inspired a bit by Sonic the Hedgehog's big "mono-eye with a perpetual frown. Fiddling around with that style today, I feel a bit less fond of it than the other approaches: the aforementioned "Garfield-style", and an adaptation of what I was doing with the stickmen, with simple lines for eyes.

One thing I've discovered with Clip Studio Paint that I'm quite fond of is colouring the images in! Using layers, you can leave your line art "on top" and paint behind it, and that, it turns out, is immensely satisfying to do. All of the above are coloured by hand using a paintbrush tool rather than a flood fill, and I really enjoyed doing that for some reason. Given the output of the tool is rather "solid" you probably can't see much in the way of "brush strokes", but I feel that colouring things in that way introduces just enough in the way of human imperfections to give it a bit more of a personal touch.

One thing I really like about drawing with a tablet on the computer is the smoothness of the lines it produces. There's still some "humanity" in there due to things like variances in pen pressure and suchlike, but there's a pleasing smoothness to lines drawn as one continuous motion that is hard to recreate even using real materials. You can't do that with a mouse, either — not even a fancy-pants high-DPI model — and, for me, it's one of the ways that computer art strikes a nice balance between the physical and digital spaces; a real way that the medium makes itself stand out as something unique, rather than an attempt to recreate something that already exists.

I'm looking forward to experimenting a bit more with this drawing tablet, and I'm going to try and scribble something as a companion piece to each post each day, just like I've been doing up until now with the stickmen. As I say, I can't promise that some days won't still have stickmen — I know they have their fans, and I still like them myself — but I also want to experiment with pushing myself a little more, and perhaps developing a bit of a style that I can absolutely call "my own".

Also the sassy gal in the bottom left is cute, no? She will definitely be making more appearances.

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#oneaday Day 567: I got a tablet

I got a drawing tablet for Christmas. It's something I've always wanted to experiment with a bit, but the price on previous occasions I've looked always felt a bit prohibitive for something I don't know if I'll stick with — but in more recent years, these things seem to have become quite a bit more affordable, so I didn't feel too bad sticking one on my wishlist.

As such, you can expect the stupid drawings on this blog to take on a certain… different quality from what they have been in the past. I am making no promises whatsoever that they will be better, but at least now they will be drawn by hand with a pen rather than scrawled using a mouse that isn't really fit for the job.

Drawing is something I used to love doing when I was a kid. I have particularly fond memories of being at my Nan and Grandad's house, armed with nothing but a pad of paper and some pencils, and that would keep me occupied for hours at a time. Sometimes I would draw things from my own imagination; at others I would attempt to recreate things I had seen myself elsewhere. I recall one of my best pieces of work being a recreation of Asterix from the famous comic book series; that was in full colour and everything and, of course, my grandparents were good enough to proudly display it on their fridge.

Doodling was a big part of my time at school also. I've talked on numerous occasions about the "Rough Books" my friend Ed and I had, and these were inevitably filled with silly cartoon strips, fake adverts and doodles of our favourite characters that we had created. On more than one occasion our predilection for doodling got us into a bit of trouble, but I think most teachers knew that it was ultimately fairly harmless compared to what some of the other kids got up to.

A tablet is half of the equation when you're talking about digital art. The other half is the software you use. Up until now, the free and excellent Paint.net has always been my tool of choice, but I feel like if I want to do a bit more with this thing, it might be worth looking at some other tools. I know Clip Studio Paint is quite well-regarded, so I may have to give the free trial version of that a bit of a go and see how I get on. I also have access to Photoshop via work, but modern Photoshop has so much shit going on in its interface that I find it borderline indecipherable compared to the CS2 and CS3 versions I'm mostly accustomed to, so I'd rather not get too involved in that.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to having a play around. And you will hopefully excuse the inevitably variable quality of the illustrations you will see on these pages as I get to grips with my new toy!

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#oneaday Day 566: Merry Christmas

Just a short one for today, as it's Christmas and I'm very tired indeed, plus we have things to do tomorrow!

A very Merry Christmas to anyone reading this. It's been a pleasantly quiet one here on Davison mountain, as we've just had the immediate family together for the first time in quite a while, particularly after some have had a bit of a turbulent year, to say the least.

Everyone got a nice selection of presents. I got some books, a nice Samsung smartwatch/fitness tracker thing and some other bits and pieces. I bought Andie a Soda Stream, as I thought it would be fun and we use quite a lot of sparkling water generally anyway.

Tomorrow we are attending a "handfasting" ceremony for my brother and his partner — not something I'm familiar with, but it sounds like a nice little event for close family. After that, it's the long drive home to reunite with the cats, who have been having to fend for themselves (with the food and water we left for them, obviously!) since Christmas Eve.

Anyway, I'm pretty wiped out so it's time to sleep. I hope you all had a pleasant Christmas if at all possible, and that you at the very least get some nice time off for the end of the year.

#oneaday Day 565: It's almost Christmas

Which means it isn't Christmas, I know. Christmas where I am at the time of writing is in 52 minutes.

We're at my parents' place for this Christmas, as my brother is over from the States, and it's a rare opportunity for our Mum and Dad to have the whole family together at a special time of year. (We're going to the in-laws for New Year, then next year they get us for Christmas.)

I've waxed lyrical over the years about how Christmas kind of loses its magic a bit as you get older, but I think there might be a kind of inverse bell curve thing going on, as I feel like I powered through Christmas being a bit "meh" over the course of the last decade or so, and I'm back to it feeling rather nice to get together with family and share some good times.

Of course, there was a hefty period of my life where things were not going particularly well, and that didn't exactly help with the festive spirit, but while I'm not in a position where I can say my life is "perfect" or 100% where I want it to be, I'm a damn sight more grounded and, for the most part, content than I was back around 2010 or so.

As I say, there are plenty of things I want to work on and improve in the coming year, and the festive season, of course, always gets one in a reflective sort of mood and keen to kid oneself that yes, this next year will be The Year.

I don't yet know if next year will be The Year. I suspect we all have many uphill battles to continue fighting in our own respective existences — and the world itself, for sure, needs to overcome its current challenges and, eventually, heal.

No-one really knows what the future holds. So while you're in a pleasant present, you might as well at least try and enjoy it.

I hope any of you out there reading this have a pleasant conclusion to 2025, whatever you might be doing to see it off — if anything. I certainly intend to try — beginning with a nice long sleep right about now.

#oneaday Day 562: This is not sponsored by Manta Sleep

A while back, my pal RoseTintedSpectrum blew up on YouTube (in the good way) with his coverage of classic TV shows, which naturally caused the sponsors to come a-knockin'. Since Rosie is well aware of the number of scammy YouTube sponsors out there — he, like me, is part of a Discord group of YouTubers, and we frequently share and discuss news from around the platform — he wasn't just going to immediately jump at the first dodgy online counselling or grocery delivery service that came his way. As such, I knew that if and when he did take on a sponsor, it would be someone that he felt comfortable recommending.

That sponsorship deal eventually came in the form of Manta Sleep, a luxury sleep mask company. And a while back, I did something I don't normally do: I bought something that I had seen advertised online. Specifically, I bought a pair of Manta SOUND masks — one for me and one for my wife — during the site's Black Friday sales, which meant they were considerably cheaper than they would be under normal circumstances.

Manta Sleep's "thing" is that rather than just being a blindfold you put on to go to sleep, their masks are designed to be both comfortable and effective. The band is made from pleasantly breathable fabric and is nice and soft, and the front of the mask features padded eyepieces that completely cover your eye sockets, blocking out absolutely all light without applying pressure to your eyes. And they really do offer complete blackout to such a degree that you will see the same thing whether your eyes are open or closed: total darkness, even if a light has been left on in the room.

The Manta SOUND mask, as the name suggests, also comes with Bluetooth headphones integrated into the mask. Rather excellently, the part of the mask that has all the electronics in can be detached from the bit that comes into contact with your face, so you can actually throw the thing in the washing machine without having to perform surgery on it beforehand. (Or, indeed, frying the electronics because you forgot to perform surgery on it beforehand.) The two earpieces are very thin and light, meaning you can lie on your side without them digging into you, and can be easily adjusted forwards and backwards in the special little pocket they're in to match the shape of your head and the position of your ears.

The sound quality is very good, too! There seems to be relatively minimal audio bleed out into the room when you're listening to something, and the sound you're listening to has a decent amount of presence. Obviously by nature of the design they're don't have quite as much oomph as a pair of "proper" headphones, but when you're trying to get to sleep, you don't need oomph — you need comfort and reliability, and that's what these have provided so far.

I've been really impressed with the Manta SOUND. They're pricy — and I'm glad I got the Black Friday deal on them — but they're clearly a premium product. And it's worth noting that for those who don't want or need the "sound" part, Manta Sleep's other masks are a tad more affordable, and just as comfortable and luxurious.

So yeah. This blog post is not sponsored by Manta Sleep, but I decided to try them out because my friend was sponsored by Manta Sleep, and now I will quite happily and comfortably recommend Manta Sleep to anyone who asks about them.

Manta Sleep.

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#oneaday Day 556: Customer non-service

Generative AI has, supposedly, revolutionised a number of sectors, with customer service being one of the most commonly cited areas that benefits from having a lying chatbot front and centre.

Except it doesn't benefit at all, does it? Because all the chatbot adds is an unnecessary step between someone who needs some help with something and them actually getting that help. And, in a lot of cases, the chatbot passes completely incorrect information on to the few remaining real people who might actually be able to do something.

My current predicament is that I'm trying to return something to a retailer. A pair of shoes. They didn't fit. Should be simple enough, right? On the retailer's own website, they allow you to set up the return and organise a courier service to come and collect it.

The courier service of choice for the retailer, Schuh, was Evri. This will probably strike fear into the hearts of most people, but honestly, up until now I've not had a huge problem with them (or their previous incarnation, Hermes). But it seems that Evri, specifically, is having a few issues right now.

My particular problems started ten days ago, when the courier was originally supposed to pick up my package to return it. They did not show up. My wife and I were in all day. There was not a single knock at the door, and I got a notification that there was "no answer" when they supposedly called to pick up the package.

No matter, I thought, checking the tracking information. They said they'll be back the next working day.

They were not back the next working day. Or the one after. So I attempted to contact Evri in order to sort things out.

Initially I got a chatbot that promised to "escalate" the issue and then did absolutely nothing. Like, it just stopped responding to anything. So I tried again. This time I tried some different options and seemingly got a message through to someone.

Except the people on the other end of my correspondence are all absolutely convinced that I am awaiting a package delivery, despite me telling them repeatedly that I need the package collecting from my house. And thus I suspect what is happening is that they are rummaging through their big pile of parcels, hoping to find the one they think they are supposed to deliver to me, not finding it, going "oh shit" and then just not doing anything else — when, in fact, the package that I want them to collect has been sitting in my house's front hallway for the last 10 days.

This isn't the first time I've encountered a situation like this since the dawn of AI chatbots, either. Earlier in the year, I had an Ikea chair break on me, and it was under guarantee, so I tried to get it replaced. After laying out very clearly that I needed the entire chair replaced under the guarantee thanks to the nature of the problem, and receiving assurances that yes, I would receive a full replacement chair from the possibly-human-probably-not thing that I was interacting with online, I waited two weeks… and then received a package through the post that contained a single chair leg.

How is anyone looking at situations like this and thinking "yes, that's a big improvement over what we had before"? The blame isn't entirely at the feet of the AI chatbots, I know, because in all of these cases there's an obvious degree of (possibly) human error involved, but the AI chatbot certainly isn't helping the fucking situation. In every case that I've had the misfortune to interact with an AI customer service chatbot, the bot hasn't been able to help with what should be a very simple enquiry and has passed me on to what is supposedly a human being that speaks English. And in every case it has seemingly passed on incorrect information — information that the supposed human being won't fucking listen to me correcting, even when I do so repeatedly and very, very clearly.

Just another way that the cyberpunk dystopia we live in completely and utterly sucks. With no real benefits to go along with all the suck.

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