Run The Gauntlet - Plymouth, UK

I had to save this somewhere because it's hilarious, but probably only if you live in Plymouth and are familiar with the town centre.

The below story is based on real events by real people.

RUN THE GAUNTLET

We've all been there, stood in Drakes Mall enjoying the pleasantish shopping experience when it suddenly dawns on us 'SHIT, I need to get something from the bottom of town' (probably a Zinger Tower Burger)
Well panic no more as we bring you this cut out and keep walk through guide as you....

RUN THE GAUNTLET.

Level One:

Getting out of the Mall.
"Have you got Sky digital services Sir?"
Say YES.
Do not pause, stutter, um and ah or under any circumstance say no. If you do you're fucked at the first hurdle. You're going nowhere.
Once negotiated you need to move quickly towards the exit.
"Do you want a Virgin bundle for £14.99 Sir? "
DO NOT be tempted. It's a trick. You don't even get a cheeky finger.
Say 'no' nice and firmly and move on.

Level Two:

You should now be out the door unless youve got yourself in that awkward situation where you seem to be holding the door open for everyone. Just let it go regardless of who's walking through. If it twats an old biddy, bonus.
Now you have to literally skip through a vast army of inaccurate footwear salesmen. "Biggish shoes, anyone want biggish shoes?" If they aint telling you the sizes then fuck them off. They look like they should buy some shoes for themselves. And some jeans. And a coat. And a haircut.
If you have made it through then well done.
You are now in 'Muff Town No Man's Land' (MTNML for short, obviously)

Level Three:

Once in MTNML its pretty much a free for all. You'll get handed leaflets that you dont want. You'll be approached by 'Clipboarders' that you don't want to and you'll get asked to donate to a charity you've never heard of. ALL will happen but the order and frequency is random. All three are easily avoided . Just smile nicely and give a very polite, friendly but stern "Fock off"

Level Four:

You should now be at the Sun Dial. Depending on the time of year but usually around here you could be forgiven by being tempted to stray of the path by the local delicacies being sold from the wooden huts. If the smell of the iguana and buffalo burgers dont put you off then the £12 price tag should.

Level 5:

Nearly there.
Your goal is in sight. There is just one massive hurdle left. This is the big boss, the daddy, the big kahuna. Yes thats right you're a Janner and staring right in front of you is a Pound Shop.
Be strong. Do you really need 72 bags of assorted crisps? Surely you have enough bin liners? There's only so much chaffing your ass can take from cheap toilet roll.
Just close your eyes (and hold your nose, Woolworths doorway is coming up) and run past. You'll feel better for it later when your not lugging 36 rolls of tracing paper back through town.

And now you have arrived. If its not a KFC you came down for then why the fuck you are down this end of town?

Goodbye Buggy Spotify, Hello Rdio...

I feel I've given Spotify enough time to sort themselves out now. Years have passed and there remains an overwhelming amount of Spotify subscribers still trying to get bugs actioned which for some pretty critical issues with the platform, is just simply not acceptable for these to still be broken a year or two later.

With each update Spotify rolls out, you can guarantee it will throw another issue/bug/fuck up into the loop. The other day, the application (Windows 7 x86) seemed to roll out a silent update successfully breaking the 'Discover' feature, the 'Activity' feed feature and streaming kept stopping on it's own.

Aside from anything else, the app is clunky, ridiculously slow at starting up / waking up, un-user-friendly interface, the search functionality has never worked properly with hundreds of thousands of subscribers not having any of their playlists (that are set to public) findable via search, the radio is useless - it not only goes off on a tangent playing crap completely different to the station you started but will also not pay any attention to your thumbs up/down and will continue to play tracks you have previously thumbed down / told it not to.

Anyway, there are so many flaws with Spotify, this post could go on for some time but it's not anything any other users of Spotify won't be frustrated with or have noticed already. As such, my credit card conveniently expires at the end of this month and I won't be renewing my subscription with Spotify.

Instead, I'm making the transition over to Rdio which I've recently started using. First impressions are good, the UI is slicker, cleaner, the platform is easier to use, the suggestion of music is far fresher and more relevant and interesting, the sound quality is better.

I only hope there is some additions coming soon like creating your own playlists from locally stored music / uploading your own music and the ability to create folders/sub folders for collections.

If anyone know of an alternative to either of these that you're seriously impressed with, then please let me know!

There is an overwhelming amount of Spotify user's complaining about bugs, user interface and functionality - all of which has not been improved. Ever.

Why Is Spotify Such a Buggy Piece of **bleep**?
This really is the most buggy app ever!
Spotify is really buggy!

And the other umpteen thousand.

You can follow me on Spotify.
You can follow me on Rdio.
I also scrobble lots to Last.fm.

Update May 2014 - After about two years, one of my playlists actually became findable in Spotify's search. Now it receives hundreds of subscribers a month. I don't think any of the others are findable but it's ridiculous that many years on, Spotify still hasn't fixed the bug with playlists not appearing in their search results.