The grumpy thread

[gm]

the first picture was taken on 15th November 2019

the second picture was taken today - the 17th November 2020

how the hell can a cam belt last only a year ? 

what doesn't make sense is the tensioners are both nice and free spinning ( I replaced them last year) and there are no signs of wear on the belt. maybe I over-tensioned it ? I don't reckon so but can't think why else it would pop like that.

thankfully, I was only half a mile from home so ran back, borrowed a willing neighbour and came back in the civic with a towrope.   

[Zelandeth]

Why the fluffing hell are MK Council gritting?!?

Lowest forecast temperature tonight is 11C...2C on Thursday night...but it's meant to be raining on Wednesday...so anything laid down now will be long gone.

[beko1987]

  On 17/11/2020 at 17:02, Zelandeth said:

Why the fluffing hell are MK Council gritting?!?

Lowest forecast temperature tonight is 11C...2C on Thursday night...but it's meant to be raining on Wednesday...so anything laid down now will be long gone.

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I think they salted the m40 last weekend, driving to Wycombe to get the bird the spray was full of shit, and the car has those black run lines up the bonnet that only happens when they've spread something

[vulgalour]

@Dick Longbridge Working from home is a tough adjustment, especially if you have to do it in isolation.  I've been working from home for years and I usually keep the door open because as soon as it's shut, I get forgotten about!  Seems to be a fairly normal thing, people interpret the shut door as 'do not disturb' or 'there's nobody here it's just me'.  Best thing to do is work out what your schedule is and ask your other half to pop their head in when you've a break planned, eventually you'll get used to each other and the new routine, but it can take a little while and the transition can be pretty demoralising without anyone really doing anything.  The brain is a tricksy thing, especially if you have to work in isolation.  If you don't already, make sure you get away from your desk for at least five minutes every two hours or so, it's good for your brain and your body to get out of the cubicle, even if you're only getting a cuppa.

[TataBobu]

  On 17/11/2020 at 13:20, Dick Longbridge said:

I'm currently working from home. I've set up in the spare bedroom and keep the door closed most of the time as I have customer calls to make.

This is day two of doing it. My fiancée is currently furloughed and at home 24/7 as is our toddler son. He's off to the childminder's each Wednesday and Thursday so he keeps his routine /social interaction.  My fiancée is able to relax a bit when he's asleep each day - usually an hour in the morning and up to a couple in the afternoon.  She tends to catch up on tv and do a few chores.

Is it wholly unreasonable of me to expect the occasional cup of coffee or even lunch? I take a 30 minute lunch break and spent half of it making something to eat yesterday. Our boy had already been fed so I couldn't enjoy quality time at the table with him. 

Today no lunch has been made once again, and there are two crusts left. Our son has just had his lunch. Apparently there's an Asda delivery later though so I can make a late lunch after that. My fiancée popped to Tesco earlier to see if our son's hat had been handed into lost property, but wasn't aware we were low on bread, so didn't think to buy any.

I'm not an easy person to live with at times, I'm sure. However, surely it's not unreasonable of me to expect a little bit of timesaving help and thought during the day whilst I'm working? We've been together for bloody years, but my god do I feel low down the ladder when it comes to priorities. I had to walk away from the situation earlier when told 'I'm not your mother'. I'm still bloody fuming tbh.

Any thoughts?! 

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WFH since March, my wife is also at home with the wee lass. Our arrangement is this: all meals together, she sets-up lunch and I set up dinner. Cooking is different, usually after dinner.

For the picky ones that would remark I've said nothing about breakfast: mine is the breakfast of champions, a vegan one.  A coffee and three cigarettes.

[New POD]

  On 17/11/2020 at 13:20, Dick Longbridge said:

I'm currently working from home. I've set up in the spare bedroom and keep the door closed most of the time as I have customer calls to make.

This is day two of doing it. My fiancée is currently furloughed and at home 24/7 as is our toddler son. He's off to the childminder's each Wednesday and Thursday so he keeps his routine /social interaction.  My fiancée is able to relax a bit when he's asleep each day - usually an hour in the morning and up to a couple in the afternoon.  She tends to catch up on tv and do a few chores.

Is it wholly unreasonable of me to expect the occasional cup of coffee or even lunch? I take a 30 minute lunch break and spent half of it making something to eat yesterday. Our boy had already been fed so I couldn't enjoy quality time at the table with him. 

Today no lunch has been made once again, and there are two crusts left. Our son has just had his lunch. Apparently there's an Asda delivery later though so I can make a late lunch after that. My fiancée popped to Tesco earlier to see if our son's hat had been handed into lost property, but wasn't aware we were low on bread, so didn't think to buy any.

I'm not an easy person to live with at times, I'm sure. However, surely it's not unreasonable of me to expect a little bit of timesaving help and thought during the day whilst I'm working? We've been together for bloody years, but my god do I feel low down the ladder when it comes to priorities. I had to walk away from the situation earlier when told 'I'm not your mother'. I'm still bloody fuming tbh.

Any thoughts?! 

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My thoughts are that you sound unreasonable.  But I understand your pain too. 

Before lockdown, I was working away from home during week.  Get up at 5:30 leave the house at 6. Start work at 8. Work til 5:30,  then 7:30 to 5:30, until Friday work til 12:00 And home by 2:30.   

Often I'd have lunch at 11:45, for a max of 30 mins. 

I would go to bed around about 9:30

I had no idea what hours my wife was living. It turns out. Gets up about 9:30, has a sleep in the afternoon, stays up til 11.  

So initially I was working from home in lockdown, and it was dire.  The work wasn't there, but i was locking myself in the study and finding stuff to do. Pretending to be busy.  Because she was having breakfast at 10:30, she wouldn't have lunch until 2:30, sometimes 3pm. I'd have my breakfast at 7:30.  By 12 I'm starving.  Offers to make lunch are met with "You should be working" 

Then my contract was cancelled at end of April.  And i started living her hours.

Anyway, I've now got another contract, which I'm doing from home.  And her Mother is staying ",temporary" after her Dad died. 

I'm struggling to start every early, there's constant interruption, and again lunch is never when it needs to be. 

But you've got to grin and bear it.  

I take a longer lunch break, usually get involved in making it, and work later in the evening.  But it's not what I want. I want to go to bed early.get up early, have an early lunch and an early tea. But I just imagine I've moved to a different time zone. 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

  On 17/11/2020 at 19:27, New POD said:

My thoughts are that you sound unreasonable.  But I understand your pain too. 

Before lockdown, I was working away from home during week.  Get up at 5:30 leave the house at 6. Start work at 8. Work til 5:30,  then 7:30 to 5:30, until Friday work til 12:00 And home by 2:30.   

Often I'd have lunch at 11:45, for a max of 30 mins. 

I would go to bed around about 9:30

I had no idea what hours my wife was living. It turns out. Gets up about 9:30, has a sleep in the afternoon, stays up til 11.  

So initially I was working from home in lockdown, and it was dire.  The work wasn't there, but i was locking myself in the study and finding stuff to do. Pretending to be busy.  Because she was having breakfast at 10:30, she wouldn't have lunch until 2:30, sometimes 3pm. I'd have my breakfast at 7:30.  By 12 I'm starving.  Offers to make lunch are met with "You should be working" 

Then my contract was cancelled at end of April.  And i started living her hours.

Anyway, I've now got another contract, which I'm doing from home.  And her Mother is staying ",temporary" after her Dad died. 

I'm struggling to start every early, there's constant interruption, and again lunch is never when it needs to be. 

But you've got to grin and bear it.  

I take a longer lunch break, usually get involved in making it, and work later in the evening.  But it's not what I want. I want to go to bed early.get up early, have an early lunch and an early tea. But I just imagine I've moved to a different time zone. 

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I couldn't live like that, long-term. My fiancée has just reminded me that she said that it would be a bad idea for me to WFH, but I assume it's the inconvenience of not having the run of the whole place during the daytime that's more the issue.

I'm at a transitional point right now- I binned two decades of teaching for a better quality of life and got a <£10ph office job just to get some money in and to avoid teaching. I want to retrain in a completely different area, but it's really bad timing with everything on standby because of C19. Covid appeared in our office pretty quickly and we were moved to home working which is where we're at right now. I don't enjoy being sat on my arse in a room all day one iota, but wanted to weather things out until spring. 

Time will tell. 

 

[vulgalour]

I love how random the copyright based takedowns are on Redbubble.  So far I've got BMW, Jaguar, Landrover (and by extension, Range Rover), Lamborghini, and now Honda blacklisted for future artwork.  This time it was a personal favourite that hasn't actually generated any sales, a fantasy hearse version of a  Honda Accord.

There are work arounds.  Don't put the company's logo or name anywhere on the image or in the description is the usual one, or just spam-post it using a variety of bots across several accounts is another.  One of the best ways to make sure your artwork never gets taken down from a print shop is to simply steal another artist's work and upload it to your own account.  You can also contact a print supplier, like Redbubble, or other image hosting type site and accuse the original artist of posting stolen content, even when it's their own original content, and get it taken down.  This works best if you've already stolen it and posted it on your account.  For some reason I don't really understand, the companies always seem to side with the art thief and not the artist.

Anyway, enjoy looking at the silly hearse I drew a while ago.  It's fun trying to guess what's going to get taken down next!

[lesapandre]

Will file your great skills for future reference.  Sorry to hear your trouble. Interestingly for a piece I was doing on here (zombie car companies) I turned up that JLR have renewed the copyright on the car name Lanchester - so even citing a defunct car name could bring someone out of the woodwork.

[New POD]

I'm sure that when I started my HND it was at Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic. 

By the time I finished my degree it had become Coventry University.

Prior to that I think it was Lanchester School of art and technology. 

JLR should invent a new name. Because some old defunct obsolete sounding name is fooling no one. 

How about Radford or Bromwich or Olton? 

[reb]

I ordered a new battery for the Volvo a week past friday, it's still not been dispatched! It'd be less annoying if it wasn't sitting exactly where I need the 205 to go! I also haven't driven since May or June-ish, which is something I'd really like to fix as soon as possible! It'd be nice to see something that isn't my living room!

[vulgalour]

  On 17/11/2020 at 19:56, lesapandre said:

Interestingly for a piece I was doing on here (zombie car companies) I turned up that JLR have renewed the copyright on the car name Lanchester - so even citing a defunct car name could bring someone out of the woodwork.

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It's just frustrating more than anything.  I have no clear answer on whether or not artwork of a thing is copyright breach and since I haven't the resources to find out with a legal challenge I just have to suck it up whenever I get hit with the takedowns.  That, combined with the larger than usual percentage of awkward customers and tyre kickers really sucked a hell of a lot of the joy out of automotive artwork for me which is why I hardly do any these days.  Lanchester news is a bit rubbish too, I have been piddling about with some ideas for a bit of LD10 artwork but I probably won't bother now.

[Zelandeth]

  On 17/11/2020 at 19:48, vulgalour said:

I love how random the copyright based takedowns are on Redbubble.  So far I've got BMW, Jaguar, Landrover (and by extension, Range Rover), Lamborghini, and now Honda blacklisted for future artwork.  This time it was a personal favourite that hasn't actually generated any sales, a fantasy hearse version of a  Honda Accord.

There are work arounds.  Don't put the company's logo or name anywhere on the image or in the description is the usual one, or just spam-post it using a variety of bots across several accounts is another.  One of the best ways to make sure your artwork never gets taken down from a print shop is to simply steal another artist's work and upload it to your own account.  You can also contact a print supplier, like Redbubble, or other image hosting type site and accuse the original artist of posting stolen content, even when it's their own original content, and get it taken down.  This works best if you've already stolen it and posted it on your account.  For some reason I don't really understand, the companies always seem to side with the art thief and not the artist.

Anyway, enjoy looking at the silly hearse I drew a while ago.  It's fun trying to guess what's going to get taken down next!

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Honda have form on this.  They've had both me and one of my housemates take down photos taken at major public motor (Detroit and Paris) shows because their products were on show there - in two out of the three in my case they weren't even the main subject of the image - just in the background!  This has happened on both Flickr and DeviantArt.  In neither case were there any options enabled for buying prints or anything so there was no commercial aspect to it.  After the second time it happened I just stopped bothering sharing photos of any new vehicle events.

[vulgalour]

What dicks.

[artdjones]

The name Lanchester should be revered as much as any man's name should be. Before Daimler took over, the cars were the equals of Rolls-Royce. And their earlier cars showed very original thinking. Plus Frederick Lanchester built the first British 4 wheel car, and was a pioneering aerodynamic researcher.

It would be a suitable name for the JLR equivalent of a Maybach.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

  On 17/11/2020 at 21:03, artdjones said:

....It would be a suitable name for the JLR equivalent of a Maybach.

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Not sure Maybach is a good example, given that Mercedes' revival resulted in cars that weren't massively better than the S-class. I think they binned the name as a car-producing brand after a few years.

[loserone]

@Dick Longbridge make some pre-prepared meals to eat together as a family for lunch.  If you can agree a fixed time perhaps she can heat them up ready for the time.  

 

My cooking skills are negligible, but Mrs L1 makes some cracking curries and shaskshuka and pasties etc. at the weekends so we try and eat together when she's at home, and often I'll put it on whilst she's e.g. coming back from the park.  Helps I can often jump to my mobile and wander downstairs to start cooking.  Not easy when I end up double booked from 11 till 2 mind, but enforcing the break is good for work as well as family.  Bizarrely this often means arranging lunch on WhatsApp despite being in the same house.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

  On 17/11/2020 at 21:27, loserone said:

@Dick Longbridge make some pre-prepared meals to eat together as a family for lunch.  If you can agree a fixed time perhaps she can heat them up ready for the time.  

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Nice idea. I'll suggest it and see what happens. 

[lesapandre]

  On 17/11/2020 at 20:05, New POD said:

I'm sure that when I started my HND it was at Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic. 

By the time I finished my degree it had become Coventry University.

Prior to that I think it was Lanchester School of art and technology. 

JLR should invent a new name. Because some old defunct obsolete sounding name is fooling no one. 

How about Radford or Bromwich or Olton? 

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They may be thinking of using it again like Mercedes with Maybach as has been said.

[lesapandre]

  On 17/11/2020 at 20:28, vulgalour said:

It's just frustrating more than anything.  I have no clear answer on whether or not artwork of a thing is copyright breach and since I haven't the resources to find out with a legal challenge I just have to suck it up whenever I get hit with the takedowns.  That, combined with the larger than usual percentage of awkward customers and tyre kickers really sucked a hell of a lot of the joy out of automotive artwork for me which is why I hardly do any these days.  Lanchester news is a bit rubbish too, I have been piddling about with some ideas for a bit of LD10 artwork but I probably won't bother now.

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I would, to protect yourself, use the DLOC monniker and logos with permission - that may be a way round any logo problem as club member? I'm unsure how serious JLR about what to do with Lanchester - just they keep it alive as a company and a brand - I was surprised to find a brand that disappeared in 1956 still alive - just.

[High Jetter]

'May Bach' is Welsh for 'small may'. No, no idea.

[lesapandre]

 

  On 17/11/2020 at 22:51, High Jetter said:

'May Bach' is Welsh for 'small may'. No, no idea.

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Welsh cars...

Clan Crusader.

May Bach Sheep-worrier.

[High Jetter]

Clan Crusader, Co Durham, surely?

[vulgalour]

Now then, there's only one Welsh car isn't there, boyyo?

[Out Run]

  On 17/11/2020 at 23:02, High Jetter said:

Clan Crusader, Co Durham, surely?

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Washington, iirc.

[captain_70s]

  On 17/11/2020 at 20:29, Zelandeth said:

Honda have form on this.  They've had both me and one of my housemates take down photos taken at major public motor (Detroit and Paris) shows because their products were on show there - in two out of the three in my case they weren't even the main subject of the image - just in the background!  This has happened on both Flickr and DeviantArt.  In neither case were there any options enabled for buying prints or anything so there was no commercial aspect to it.  After the second time it happened I just stopped bothering sharing photos of any new vehicle events.

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This doesn't surprise me, Japanese companies tend to be shit hot when it comes to copyright and intellectual property.

I'm pretty sure some companies (BMW spring to mind here?) actually have aspects of their car designs copyrighted, silhouettes, styling flourishes, wheel designs etc, so even removing all badging isn't enough as it's still a recognisable brand property. I'm very surprised at the amount of "hippy camper" type stuff that exists which is obviously a VW, although they certainly seem to be on the decline.

I think it is technically a copyright breach to sell a photo or drawing of an entity that is owned by another company. Even though the photograph/artwork is of your own creation the subject of the piece belongs to the copyright holder and would need their permission to license. Given how many companies want to sell their brand on their own terms I can't see the situation improving.

[Pieman]

Welsh cars....Darrian?

[New POD]

  On 18/11/2020 at 02:50, captain_70s said:

This doesn't surprise me, Japanese companies tend to be shit hot when it comes to copyright and intellectual property.

I'm pretty sure some companies (BMW spring to mind here?) actually have aspects of their car designs copyrighted, silhouettes, styling flourishes, wheel designs etc, so even removing all badging isn't enough as it's still a recognisable brand property. I'm very surprised at the amount of "hippy camper" type stuff that exists which is obviously a VW, although they certainly seem to be on the decline.

I think it is technically a copyright breach to sell a photo or drawing of an entity that is owned by another company. Even though the photograph/artwork is of your own creation the subject of the piece belongs to the copyright holder and would need their permission to license. Given how many companies want to sell their brand on their own terms I can't see the situation improving.

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A mate of mine makes and sells bars made from a front panel of a VW camper van.  He is very careful to not show images of the VW badge and in most cases it is a CND badge. Instead. 

If the customer wants a VW badge, they can buy one elsewhere 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

  On 18/11/2020 at 05:33, New POD said:

A mate of mine makes and sells bars made from a front panel of a VW camper van.  He is very careful to not show images of the VW badge ....

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Extends to computer games as well. I've been playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 for ages and, apart from the tractor unit brands which are all officially licensed, the other traffic in the game shows no badges at all even though the cars and vans are all recognisable. The VW Golf in there carries an emblem not unlike the Eggstinktion Rebellion logo.

[sierraman]

  On 17/11/2020 at 13:20, Dick Longbridge said:

I'm currently working from home. I've set up in the spare bedroom and keep the door closed most of the time as I have customer calls to make.

This is day two of doing it. My fiancée is currently furloughed and at home 24/7 as is our toddler son. He's off to the childminder's each Wednesday and Thursday so he keeps his routine /social interaction.  My fiancée is able to relax a bit when he's asleep each day - usually an hour in the morning and up to a couple in the afternoon.  She tends to catch up on tv and do a few chores.

Is it wholly unreasonable of me to expect the occasional cup of coffee or even lunch? I take a 30 minute lunch break and spent half of it making something to eat yesterday. Our boy had already been fed so I couldn't enjoy quality time at the table with him. 

Today no lunch has been made once again, and there are two crusts left. Our son has just had his lunch. Apparently there's an Asda delivery later though so I can make a late lunch after that. My fiancée popped to Tesco earlier to see if our son's hat had been handed into lost property, but wasn't aware we were low on bread, so didn't think to buy any.

I'm not an easy person to live with at times, I'm sure. However, surely it's not unreasonable of me to expect a little bit of timesaving help and thought during the day whilst I'm working? We've been together for bloody years, but my god do I feel low down the ladder when it comes to priorities. I had to walk away from the situation earlier when told 'I'm not your mother'. I'm still bloody fuming tbh.

Any thoughts?! 

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Hmm it’s probably not unreasonable to expect you to knock your own lunch up. I get my tea done for me but if I want dinner I’ve to get off my arse and make it which isn’t unreasonable.