What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[vulgalour]

^Agreed. "Fiat 850 Girdle" is not likely to be something you hear being played on the radio though.

 

I've been amused of late by my parents' neighbour who seems to be on a mission to be the grumpiest old man on the street, but not in a good way. Lately, with my brother and I both going to the parental unit's place for their flat drive and Dad's car tinkering experience, there's been a steady to and fro of old cars with bonnets open and Dad wandering around being the gaffer and helping us do things. Dad can't work due to a degenerative back injury which is unlikely to improve, but he can stand around and supervise and tell Mum when we need a fresh brew, or tell Mum which bit of a car needs an extra pair of hands to keep it where we need it. However, grumpy old neighbour has taken it upon himself to report Dad for working. He's also reported my brother numerous times for driving my Dad's car, which he's actually insured to drive and has a full license and I'm pretty sure he's reported me at least once too as I have been followed home by the police.

 

So now I'm just looking for ways to wind the old codger up. My current favourites are parking in front of his house in the Princess and at night, being sure to come up my parents' drive with the headlights on so that they shine straight into his living room. Any other suggestions are very welcome, he's been a miserly old git for many years now and he deserves a taste of his own I think.

[Ross_K]

So now I'm just looking for ways to wind the old codger up. My current favourites are parking in front of his house in the Princess and at night, being sure to come up my parents' drive with the headlights on so that they shine straight into his living room. Any other suggestions are very welcome, he's been a miserly old git for many years now and he deserves a taste of his own I think.

 

Give him some crazy back.Knock on his door in your dressing gown and whisper in his ear that you're going to rape his wife and kill his dog (or vice versa) if he doesn't fuck off and mind his own business.

 

Seriously though I find direct action/confrontation works better than passive aggressive games when dealing with old c**ts like this.

 

He acts the bollocks like this because you parked on "his" bit of road once, or some other similarly fucked up reason that mkes no sense to anybody but himself...

 

I hope I don't go like that when I'm old but the missus says I'm a grumpy c**t already.

[autofive]

i usually find the loud discussion of 'several caravans arriving shortly, and where they put the horse' winds up my neighbour sufficiently.

 

The more he reports and complains, the more he will be ignored. my neighbour is a serial complainer, the local council have him marked as a nuisanse caller and now ignore his telephone calls declaring rats, rubbish and fires from our house. (none of which are true, but he loves to complain). The local police and PCSOs also ignore his moaning, they knock on my door and apoligise for bothering me, but someone has complained and they have to follow it up. I always say i'm worried about him, as he seems to be going senile, and needs full time care

[Mr_Bo11ox]

If you know or can get his phone number, the only sensible option is to pop a cheap Mk2 escort on Gumtree for him every week for the next few years.

[Negative Creep]

Sign him up for every brochure, mailing list and free samples as you can think of. Another Gumtree idea is for an Audi A4 no tax or MOT £200 quick sale needed

[Cavcraft]

Send him a picture of 'Look at the tits on this !!!'.

[Cavcraft]

Went 'proper' mountain biking last night on a sixty quid Halford's Mingebag Special. We took the 'easy' trail around Llandegla, 7.5 miles of muscle wrecking fun. Going up I swore I'd never go again and ended up walking probably 3/4 of the hill as I was destroyed and the hill never seemed to stop.

Coming down, however, was like a fairground ride and absolutely ace fun, even managed to get past some of the £3500 bike brigade in places, though to to be fair they'd probably ridden the whole route and not copped out!

[mattblack]

O/H is watching 'Phil Spencer, Secret Agent', where he goes round peoples' house telling them why they aren't selling (because they're shitholes, basicaly) The bloke he's helping today has a couple of MK2 jags, an XJ40 and a 309 festering in the back garden.

[willswitchengage]

Went 'proper' mountain biking last night on a sixty quid Halford's Mingebag Special. We took the 'easy' trail around Llandegla, 7.5 miles of muscle wrecking fun. Going up I swore I'd never go again and ended up walking probably 3/4 of the hill as I was destroyed and the hill never seemed to stop.

Coming down, however, was like a fairground ride and absolutely ace fun, even managed to get past some of the £3500 bike brigade in places, though to to be fair they'd probably ridden the whole route and not copped out!

 

Nice work, that place is dead fun, if it's a quiet day I'd recommend doing the red run as it's only slightly more difficult and all the hard bits have chicken 'chutes (which I take ). Still managed to fall off last time I went though

[Albert Ross]

Saw this and thought of you lot.

[richardthestag]

If you know or can get his phone number, the only sensible option is to pop a cheap Mk2 escort on Gumtree for him every week for the next few years.

 

 

Add something like, I work nights so call after 10pm

 

Might have done something like this before but with mk2 golf Gti and £200 -need cash kind of thing

 

Do hmrc still have a supergrass line? Got to be worth a go, you know smuggling fags or something like that.

[messerschmitt owner]

new towbar bolted on to the XM estate - good forward thinking on my part to rescue one from an XM estate in the local scrappy last year!

 

Just need to get a towball and wire it all up.

 

Taxing it tomorrow for the first of the month.

[Albert Ross]

Fit a commercial ring/ball hitch for added mirth.

[autofive]

Do hmrc still have a supergrass line? Got to be worth a go, you know smuggling fags or something like that.

 

dont fuck with customs, they will find you, and rip you a new arsehole

 

why not just get a squeezy bottle of bleach and draw a knob on his front lawn

[Cavcraft]

Went 'proper' mountain biking last night on a sixty quid Halford's Mingebag Special. We took the 'easy' trail around Llandegla, 7.5 miles of muscle wrecking fun. Going up I swore I'd never go again and ended up walking probably 3/4 of the hill as I was destroyed and the hill never seemed to stop.

Coming down, however, was like a fairground ride and absolutely ace fun, even managed to get past some of the £3500 bike brigade in places, though to to be fair they'd probably ridden the whole route and not copped out!

 

Nice work, that place is dead fun, if it's a quiet day I'd recommend doing the red run as it's only slightly more difficult and all the hard bits have chicken 'chutes (which I take ). Still managed to fall off last time I went though

 

Stuff that, the blue route wrecked me! Having said that all runs started from the top of that sodding hill so the mission next time is just to ride to the top as coming down is easy. There was an ambulance there yesterday and it seems like a common occurrence from what people were saying. Saw glimpses of the black run and those sort of wooden ramp things: bollocks to that, you'd need to be completely mental to even think about it.

[Albert Ross]

You like gardening don't you? Plant bulbs that spell FUCK OFF in his lawn, he won't know till Spring...................

[HillmanImp]

Stuff that, the blue route wrecked me! Having said that all runs started from the top of that sodding hill so the mission next time is just to ride to the top as coming down is easy. There was an ambulance there yesterday and it seems like a common occurrence from what people were saying. Saw glimpses of the black run and those sort of wooden ramp things: bollocks to that, you'd need to be completely mental to even think about it.

 

Best trail centre in the country to find your feet on a mountain bike is probably Red at Sherwood pines when its been dry. Very very easy but when dry really fun and fast with some nicely thought out corners etc. Downhill and jump park are good too. Then do Red at Llandegla and then red at Dalby forest. After that you start on the other welsh trail centres. My 2 favourites are the Dragons back and Coed Y Brenin and pretty much every trail at Afan (I FUCKING LOVE AFAN).

 

TBH I don't like Llandegla much its a bit dull but still came a right cropper with that new black bit at the end behind the cafe when it was brand new as there was not a sign for the six foot vertical drop. I saw it too late, managed to stop the bike but went over the handlebars and right down it. I would have been better riding it. No serious damage though other than my pride.

 

There is no measure of scale on the red blue and black in different places. Sherwood pines red is like a blue at anywhere else, the blacks at dalby are like the reds in Coed Y Brenin and so on. The thing you must always remember is dont panic. 75% of the time the bike will ride it and the other 25% of the time it generally doesn't hurt that much falling off.

[Caffiend]

If you give up smoking following the NHS-approved process of keeping you dependent on nicotine or an alternative, your GP gets £50 if you stay quit for 4 weeks. Which I have done today.

 

If you just decide to be a grown up and get on with quitting without GP or smoking cessation team "support", they get fuck all. It was *very* entertaining watching my GP congratulate me and trying to be sincere about it. Especially since he is a smoker. Ha!

[cobblers]

Bike things

 

 

Sherwood pines is good, (and local) but there's no real big hills which means uphill slogs are short, but downhill fun is similarly short. It's pretty good as far as keeping your spirits up goes though!

 

Dalby has some great big hills which means you can spend a lot of time slogging up them, but it's really really made worth it on the other side. At sherwood you'll spend about 5 minutes climbing for 90 seconds of fun, over and over for an hour or two, whereas at Dalby you climb for 20 minutes and but get 5 minutes of flying downhill at high speed out of it.

 

Sherwood pines has the routes colour coded, but only to differentiate gravel roads or cycle tracks. There's nothing round there that my gran couldn't tackle, but it's really well laid out so it really makes the most of the space and terrain.

 

Dalby has a lot more challenging stuff, now I've fixed my bike I might razz up in the van for a couple of days soon actually.

[TimothyClaypole]

This:

 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/FIfbghHdG1s

 

And this:

 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/obtRn04W5uA

 

 

Part of my job entails testing stuff customers have returned. Due to someone leaving last week to have another baby and the hippy who worked behind me being moved to her job I now also do headphones, speakers, etc.

 

I have a laptop for testing printers/network stuff (I know very little about networking but look like I know what I'm doing with a multimeter etc. tbh)

 

So I have 33 tracks on YouTube via the laptop for testing with and added those two for the next time I get a projector to test.

[John F]

Fit a commercial ring/ball hitch for added mirth.

 

NATO hitch FTW!

[morris_ital_lover]

I see it has been raining heavily so it has become national drive like a braindead twat day... highlights seem to be coming from N Ireland where the PSNI have sunk a landrover and some tit has been filmed driving his Mercedes into a big lake under a bridge. Luckily no shite has been harmed.

[willswitchengage]

You all want to go here:

 

(okay YT embedding apparently doesn't work)

 

 

Although I'd recommend taking one of these:

 

[Ross_K]

This:

 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/FIfbghHdG1s

 

Sweeeet. I must check those young ladies out in hi-def on the telly later.

[alf892]

making me grin is philbusmo.............basing a vehicle purchase on the handling/driving behaviour when he 'tried' one on Grand Theft Auto.........

[Ross_K]

I know. Everybody knows a 1200bhp Mitsubishi GTO twin turbo is the best sports car ever.

 

[Pillock]

+1 on the Sherwood Pines red route. I'm a lardy mofo and I can do it in a reasonable time, last time it was on a bike with a cracked back spindle. Did have a bit of an "off" which left a nice scar though, there's a few of the downhill bits that turn from hard soil to soft sand and it can throw you.

 

If you want to do something flat before/after there's also some nice routes to the Major Oak from the Pines, takes you across Peafield Lane.

 

I used to live in Rainworth and there's a back way into the Pines, so I'd ride up there, do half the red route, out the other side, up to the Major Oak for an icecream, and then back doing the other half of the red route. Nice way to spend a day, not recommended on a Sunday as the probability of hitting a Yorkshire Terrier as you get close to the big dead tree is high.

[Cavcraft]

I think a lot of the struggle was using a small frame, full suspension bike. I wouldn't take a 'non-suspended' bike there because it'd cripple my back, and I'm used to a very light road bike so sort of bouncing up a bloody steep hill was not at all easy. Gumtree has thrown up a cheap full suspension and disc brake 'spares or repair' bike which the seller delivered last night, so I'm sort of trying to rebuild it with parts off another bike, hopefully making something the right spec on the cheap. Would it be worthwhile getting someone to knock up either a removeable clip of some sort to keep the rear spring locked in or even an oblong box piece I could swap the shock for and just bolt on/off when needed? I reckon in time and with the right bike (lightweight, front suspension only) I could crack the hill without stopping.

[willswitchengage]

^front lockouting forks are quite cheap and readily available - rears, as the shocks themselves can be prohibitively expensive so although it's a nice idea it's not necessarily feasible. Moving from my medium-travel mountain bike to a road bike the "climbing effort" difference really isn't as much as you'd expect, I'd recommend keeping your full susser as it is - or if you can afford a chiropractor then you can get down even a red trail quite safely on a hardtail (although it does hurt!)

[TimothyClaypole]

The people on the M18 southbound after junction 4.

 

Brake and swerving about and generally making a performance - due to a 6 foot long chunk of wood blocking the outside lane (definately fallen off the back of a lorry).

 

Stopped in the middle of both lanes, stuck the hazzards on, jumped out and dragged it to the hard shoulder, sorted in a few seconds and everyone could get home safely.

 

 

The Highways Agency were parked half a mile down the road drinking tea/coffee and probably making truckers Tizer.

 

 

(I was in my big van and had a vis vest on so felt qualified to do some recover work).

 

 

My good deed for the day.