Confusing

There are some things I do from time to time that really do come into that category of 'stupidity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results'. Almost every day I check out the website of the local newspaper. Now, I'm not saying that is a stupid thing to do, although the paper is not exactly renowned for cutting edge journalism. No, the stupid thing is scrolling down to the readers' comments and hoping to read something that is correct in both grammar and spelling and not blaming either the Tories or the Greens for everything while at the same time insulting just about everybody else who has commented with a different point of view. And it is mainly a dozen or so people  whose noms de plume appear every time. Every time I look I resolve never to do it again. But I still do.

At least that is consistent, unlike that site which encourages travellers to write reviews of hotels and restaurants. I go there occasionally out of some masochistic tendency just to see what other people are saying about restaurants I know.  It is always restaurants that I check as I almost never stay in hotels.  But how is it that one reviewer raves about a restaurant while the next advises us never to cross its threshold?  I know that each is stating his (or her) own opinion and that one man's meat etc - but I am still staggered by the wildly different comments..  Having said (written/typed) all that, I have just checked the reviews of our local Italian - where we shall be eating tomorrow - and find that of 121 reviews, 88 rate the restaurant excellent and 27 very good.  Just goes to prove me wrong!

But another review site that provides reviews of tradespeople also puzzles me. The reviews seem to be consistently good, very good or excellent.  But every time I try to use one of the highly-rated tradesmen, I find them almost but not quite disastrous.

Is it any wonder I'm confused?