The grumpy thread

[dozeydustman]

One hour in of working at home and it’s been about as productive as a kick in the bollocks.

Laptop has rebooted, crashed or ‘updated’ 6 times since 8:45, the work VPN keeps dropping out so I cannot access things on shared drives, and a member of ICT support is trying to contact me on my DESK PHONE and not teams as requested.

Have you ever wondered where your council tax money goes?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

13 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Had a knock on the door right in the middle of dinner.

Someone offering to "take those four scrap cars off your hands."

........

Checked after I finally managed to tell the in no uncertain terms no, and sure enough the dropside Transit they were in hasn't been taxed or MOTed since 2016.  Not insured either.  Reported to the police, not that I expect them to do anything about it but at least I've done my bit.

Travellers!!

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, dozeydustman said:

Have you ever wondered where your council tax money goes?

Many times, but then I guess it pays your wages even though massive amounts are squandered.

[Talbot]

20 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Travellers!!

Seriously though, you do have to be very careful how to tell a bunch of dicks in a transit van how to fuck off.  If you're too rude/hard about it, they'll likely come back en-masse later and torch your house.  You have to just be a bit gentle and tell them you're not interested thanks.

It's part of the reason I decided to bin my old Discovery.  The number of people who thought it was their right to insist I sell it to them was amazing.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Just now, Talbot said:

....  The number of people who thought it was their right to insist I sell it to them was amazing.

Maybe one day they'll make you an offer you can't refuse....

[Talbot]

2 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Maybe one day they'll make you an offer you can't refuse....

Nope.  Gone now.

[dozeydustman]

24 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Many times, but then I guess it pays your wages even though massive amounts are squandered.

Yes. It’s not a great wage compared to some councils

[GrumpiusMaximus]

2 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

One hour in of working at home and it’s been about as productive as a kick in the bollocks.

Laptop has rebooted, crashed or ‘updated’ 6 times since 8:45, the work VPN keeps dropping out so I cannot access things on shared drives, and a member of ICT support is trying to contact me on my DESK PHONE and not teams as requested.

Have you ever wondered where your council tax money goes?

In fairness to the ICT person, they may have a rule about not using Teams to contact for support.  Certainly the case where I am as all of our calls are recorded and we have to stay logged into them, as well as messing up the monitoring.  We can remotely access the laptops via Teamviewer, etc. but wer'ne not allowed to do the initial contact through Teams.

[dozeydustman]

@GrumpiusMaximus Teams is supposed to be the default; it certainly is in the civic centre but for some reason they always try the telephone for depot staff (which I am). No idea why as apart from one person everyone in the depot is pretty tech-savvy. May be a policy

[GrumpiusMaximus]

1 hour ago, dozeydustman said:

@GrumpiusMaximus Teams is supposed to be the default; it certainly is in the civic centre but for some reason they always try the telephone for depot staff (which I am). No idea why as apart from one person everyone in the depot is pretty tech-savvy. May be a policy

It may be the case that's there's a specific policy.  See if you can get in touch with the Service Desk manager and see what they say!

[BL Bloke]

I tried to log in to my PayPal account to pay @eddyramrodfor a couple of kits only to be told that my password isn't enough and they need to send a security code to my mobile phone in order for me to log in. This would be fine but I noticed that I  haven't used the phone since November so I think it might have been disconnected through lack of use. A few times in the past I've had to ring my landline just to keep it connected but this time I obviously forgot. I'll see if I can get it reconnected tomorrow but if they need to see photo ID before they can do it that'll  be a problem as I don't have any. ☹️

[iainrcz]

My knees. Fuck me man.

[myglaren]

14 hours ago, BL Bloke said:

I tried to log in to my PayPal account to pay @eddyramrodfor a couple of kits only to be told that my password isn't enough and they need to send a security code to my mobile phone in order for me to log in. This would be fine but I noticed that I  haven't used the phone since November so I think it might have been disconnected through lack of use. A few times in the past I've had to ring my landline just to keep it connected but this time I obviously forgot. I'll see if I can get it reconnected tomorrow but if they need to see photo ID before they can do it that'll  be a problem as I don't have any. ☹️

They will ring your landline.

Mine was registered to them but I don't have one anymore - the line is there but no phone.

Re-registered with the mobile without too much effort.

Try again as it is random, about 1 time in 10.

[bobdisk]

@BL Bloke,thanks, you just reminded me, I have an old mobile I havent used for god knows how long, should keep it active!

[Parky]

This weekend.  Migraine, backache, another migraine, recovery, silent migraine (one with the aura and vision loss but no pain), blockbuster headache without aura, mega migraine complete with complete numbness down left side and inability to remember or recognise words (like concussion) and today normal.  Bloody wierd especially as mother in law has the same thing.  

Possibles - some sort of virus her stepdaughters kids have brought home that my system hasn’t seen for 40 years and hers for 70

Norwester.  We have a wind here which makes some people go loopy.  Like the Mistral in France.  We had a Norwester all weekend

CO Poisoning.  Diesel fumes give me migraines.  This place is full of wood burners and as it has turned cold the place stinks of smoke as everyone lights up.  I definitely felt better out and about in clearer air so I think this could be it.  Maybe the flue on my places wood burner is restricted and burned air is sucking back in?

Who knows about carbon monoxide poisoning and testing??

Stockbroker interview went alright though.  Today’s performance was brought to you by Doliprane, the fucking enormous paracetamol painkiller from Toulouse.  Yes, four times the potency and only four times the size of a regular tablet.  Think of it like a 20mm cannon shell that aims for pain whilst being similar in size to something found in a Spitfire IX wing mounting....Doliprane......when you absolutely totally will do literally anything including swallowing something that John Holmes would be proud of to make it all go away

[Talbot]

55 minutes ago, Parky said:

Who knows about carbon monoxide poisoning and testing??

Carbon monoxide poisoning can give you the symptoms you're describing.  Get a CO alarm.  They're usually about £15 or so in the UK, but are worth their weight in gold.  The colour-change dots are not anywhere near as reactive, so I wouldn't bother with them.

Wood burners can absolutely generate CO.  You also have to be careful, as if the cast iron is gotten hot enough, then it can become porus and allow CO out directly into the room.

To detect CO in the bloodstream, you need a fairly fancy pulse oximiter (not the cheap ones, as they can't differentiate between CO2 and CO) or a blood test.

If you start to feel sleepy with a headache, there's definitely something wrong.  CO poisoning *will* kill you if the levels are high enough.

[iainrcz]

Don't fuck around with carbon monoxide.

Get a detector.

[somewhatfoolish]

If you burn things to cook or heat your home it's a good idea to get one, cheap insurance against death.

[Zelandeth]

Don't forget with CO poisoning that everything isn't just fine once you're in clear air as CO is absorbed preferentially by the blood cells - it takes a long time to leave your system.

 

My grump: Had an abrupt reminder today that cycling on two wheels rather than three is easier to screw up.

Had a strap on the luggage rack of the bike come loose and it managed to hook my trouser leg while I was pedalling - which threw me off balance enough to punt me off the bike and into the adjacent kerb.

Badly sprained left wrist, nasty bruise and scrape on left knee, cut on my ear from my sunglasses and a heck of a bruised couple of ribs.

Yeah...think I'll go back to using the C5 or other trike I think!

Ow.

[LightBulbFun]

7 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Yeah...think I'll go back to using the C5 or other trike I think!

Ow.

what you need is a Model 33 (a Harty Dingwall hand propelled invalid tricycle)

to go with your Model 70  

[Spurious]

Oh bother. The Jimny sounds like it's a rally spec mini with a straight cut gearbox in 3rd and 4th. Also with an ominous whirring sound which sounds like bearings being chewed up. 

Sounds expensive. Changed the fluid and there's a mountain of filings. This box had new oil 7k miles ago. 

And the fluid is manky. I pulled cleaner fluid out of the 32 year old gearbox on the Audi last year. 

😔

[anonymous user]

12 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

what you need is a Model 33 (a Harty Dingwall hand propelled invalid tricycle)

to go with your Model 70  

But he already has a bad wrist

[Crackers]

Brain dump on the AS hive mind coming up.

I'm seriously thinking about saving some money up and just launching the P6 at the nearest garage. 

I want to do at least some of the work myself, but I'm not equipped to do a lot of the suspension work, and I seriously don't have enough time to focus on it until the winter. 

Just reading through the workshop book for it, as I was going to do the brakes soon: "Remove the front hub as described". Oh. Cack. Bollocks to that, I'm not pulling bearings out and setting end floats etc, just for the sake of changing the discs. 

One hand, I really need to learn this stuff and the only way to learn it is to do it, I feel like a bit of a cheat if I just chuck it at someone else. And it becomes a vicious cycle when I end up with the same feeling on the next job, and the one after that, etc, etc.

On the other hand, I can't dedicate the time, and I don't want the aggro from myself and dad when I inevitably make a total raging horlicks of it. It's only* money, I'd much rather be able to make proper use of the car than be sitting there finding excuses not to touch it. If I pay to get the car to a happier state, then when new jobs come up I can look to tackle them on my own at my own pace, rather than having a wall of work I definitely cannot do hanging over my shoulders. 

Sorry, I just needed to write that all down, I know it's not a grump per se but anyway. As you were. 

[LightBulbFun]

21 minutes ago, Crackers said:

Brain dump on the AS hive mind coming up.

I'm seriously thinking about saving some money up and just launching the P6 at the nearest garage. 

I want to do at least some of the work myself, but I'm not equipped to do a lot of the suspension work, and I seriously don't have enough time to focus on it until the winter. 

Just reading through the workshop book for it, as I was going to do the brakes soon: "Remove the front hub as described". Oh. Cack. Bollocks to that, I'm not pulling bearings out and setting end floats etc, just for the sake of changing the discs. 

One hand, I really need to learn this stuff and the only way to learn it is to do it, I feel like a bit of a cheat if I just chuck it at someone else. And it becomes a vicious cycle when I end up with the same feeling on the next job, and the one after that, etc, etc.

On the other hand, I can't dedicate the time, and I don't want the aggro from myself and dad when I inevitably make a total raging horlicks of it. It's only* money, I'd much rather be able to make proper use of the car than be sitting there finding excuses not to touch it. If I pay to get the car to a happier state, then when new jobs come up I can look to tackle them on my own at my own pace, rather than having a wall of work I definitely cannot do hanging over my shoulders. 

Sorry, I just needed to write that all down, I know it's not a grump per se but anyway. As you were. 

I wonder if part of the issue is just the sheer gradient your trying to go at here

for someone trying to learn the ropes, a Rover P6 is a bit up there!

I mean I cant even get a bloody Invacar on the road and they are positively simple and easy, even compared to most regular cars

(ok to be fair to myself she is kept even further afield then you are from the P6 is and I dont have any means of personal transport to get to her otherwise LOL)

 

 so I cant even imagine trying to take on a P6 knowing your in similar shoes to myself, so massive kudos there

 

 

so I wonder if what might be worth doing is just as you say saving up and getting the P6 sorted at a garage if you can, so you know its sorted and something you can put out of mind

then in the meantime get a simpler project car you can then cut your teeth on, something you can get nice and experienced and dont mind cocking up on along the way

so that when/if the P6 throws a wobble at you further down the road you will be better equipped both physically in that you have good number of tools on hand already

and mentally prepared 

from having fixed up the aforementioned simpler Project car

 

I mean its just a really good excuse to get another Pre 1980's British car  

 

[Crackers]

7 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

I wonder if part of the issue is just the sheer gradient your trying to go at here

Yeah, you make a good point. I don't think it's necessary due to the unusual* design of the car, as these jobs could come up on anything, I think it's just the sheer number of related jobs that need doing, of which I'm not really kitted out to do most. Let's be honest, this many bushings (etc) would still be a right pain in the ass for a lot of competent* home mechanics. 

*which I am not!

Hence why I'm thinking about getting the big (and expensive 😑) jobs done professionally, then I can do the remaining smaller fettling/tinkering/improving jobs that I'm actively looking forward to. 

 

[Crackers]

14 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

its just a really good excuse to get another Pre 1980's British car

Also, don't tempt me you little bugger, I've already had a couple of dangerous moments on eBay this week 😳😁

[hairnet]

Hubnut shits on my plans

[Remspoor]

Almost set my place on fire.

I had a gas blow touch which used a propane bottle, one of the long thin ones.

The torch is a few years old and it recently stopped working. I tried to purchase a new one but all I could find was ones which use the dumpy round canisters.

I decided to take the torch apart and clean it. I used brake cleaner as it usually is quite good at that sort of thing.

Reassembled and the thing worked. Closed the valve and relit it. It worked. Closed the valve and then after a second or tow the bloody thing caught fire. I dumped it very quickly. Ran inside shouting to the wife get the fire extinguisher. We have a number of the industrial sized ones around the house as the house has a fair bit of wood in the construction plus the furniture and a wood pile staked for the open fire.

One quick blast that the gas was no longer burning. Boy do those things make a mess. Lucky this was outside in the front patio. Had to change my under wear as I was really scared that the canister would explore.

I am so grumpy at myself. Never again will I be stupid enough to try and repair a gas torch.

[dozeydustman]

@Crackers how shagged are the discs?

[Crackers]

7 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

@Crackers how shagged are the discs?

At least one is warped, there is a noticeable shake under braking and a very slightly audible "wshh wshh wshh" rub at slow speed.