no women allowed!

[stuart noble]

It's my considered opinion that women should be banned from Toolstation and Screwfix branches, thus reducing the waiting time by half. My plumber agrees

[Brian-Gaff]

Would that not be the case if you banned every other customer though? I'd imagine the companies profits might plummet either way. Brian

[Roger Mills]

Are you referring to customers or sales assistants (many of whom are female in the branches I visit)?

Oh, and please sort out your sig separator - needs to be 2 dashes and a space, not 3 dashes.

[newshound]

There was an extremely competent pair of young ladies shopping in Wickes last time I was there. I don't know whether they had stayed clear of B&Q to avoid getting *looks*.

:-)

[whisky-dave]

They were probbably dykes ;-)

[News]

We have a couple of friends in the village who have bought an old wreck of a cottage which they have ripped apart and are rebuilding. They are both female, and could be described as 'very good friends'. It has to be said that they are doing an excellent job, as well as almost any bloke, and better than most. I would not wish to be the assistant in B&Q or anyone else who patronised either of 'em because of their sex.

[Johnny B Good]

That's nice of him. :-)

BTW, you *do* realise, don't you, that your AV (as per the above malformed sig lines) is 'taking the piss'?

Normally, I'd manually remove such malformed sig lines, that my news client would otherwise have removed, from follow up postings but, exceptionally in this instance, I have left them alone as they are a reference to the problem.

Allowing any AV to use your news client as an advertising bill board does rather compromise your credibility as a "worthy contributor". If I were in your position (being exploited by my AV), I'd be undoing the mess that the AV has made of my sig file PDQ.

HTH & HAND :-)

[Johnny B Good]

That's the least of his sig file problems. He needs to remove Avast's blatant advert from his sig file and stop his news client being exploited as a Bill Board for Avast's own purpose.

I wouldn't mind betting that the malformed sig separator is Avast's doing in order to spread the message even further via other usenet posters who fail to manually trim such sig text that escapes the notice of their own news client software when posting follow ups.

[spuorgelgoog]

Why is your plumber using Screwfix and not Plumbfix?

Owain

[Cursitor Doom]

You're right, sadly. Same when you ring up tech support. You just know you're going to have to explain everything *twice* if a woman answers the phone:

"Hi there, can I speak to someone with a query on compatibility issues with your XC7897C, please?" "I can help you with that. What's the problem?" [make lengthy problem explanation, knowing it'll be utterly futile] "Er... You'd better ask our Mr. Jones about that. Just a minute I'll put you through...."

[charles]

You seem like on of those people who, when answered by female voise, demanded to "speak to an engineers". These are the ones who were passed to a female engineer. They do exist.

[pamela]

Because he's a man. A woman wouldn't make that mistake!

[Tim Streater]

Why is he using AV in the first place?

[FullyDetached]

There's a mixture of men and women working in my local Screwfix, but the voices I hear chatting and joking (rather than collecting my order) coming from the warehouse are usually male.

[Bob Eager]

When SWMBO graduated with a degree in English and American Literature, she couldn't get a job (surprise!). She ended up working in one of the very early B&Q stores, and learned a great deal. It's quite fun watching her in such stores now (I 'disown' her so I can watch the fun).

She moved into teaching computing all the way up to HNC level (she spent a few years as a commercial programmer and database manager). At one point she was teaching basic computing to motley crews of tradesmen, and delighted in relating her examples to their various specialities. One of the brickies said "But we haven't learned about stretcher bond yet"! There were also plumbers, electricians, decorators, plasteres and I forget what else...

[Cursitor Doom]

I know they exist, but only in *very* small numbers. Statistically I am FAR more likely to have my time wasted by a woman than a man. There. I've said it! :-P

[Cursitor Doom]

Perhaps you have a duff news client. It's giving me no problem here with Pan - and I find nothing objectionable about the AV declaration, either.

[Julian Barnes]

Absolutely! That's why I always insist on a woman making my tea. Two sugars please, love. ;->

[stuart noble]

Actually I was referring to female customers rather than female staff. The Avast sig has hopefully gone....or has it?

[Johnny B Good]

It has... totally! :-)

However, there are no sig lines at all now. Whether you want to bother with sig lines is up to you. It's generally considered good netiquette to use the sig line(s - up to a max of four generally being deemed as acceptable before it starts looking like you're 'taking the piss') in order to offer some hint as to what 'monica' you'd like others to use when addressing you in any follow up replies if the from address doesn't suggest what name you'd like to be referred by. In your own case, Stuart, no sig lines are better than the ones imposed by your AV software.