The grumpy thread

[beko1987]

18 hours ago, stephen01 said:

1765. 

I remember standing in the grounds 

 

 

 

 

 

It's too early, I'm not awake fully, I skim read your post and thought you were a vampire or something for a few minutes... 😅

(apols if you are though... No offence meant) 

[artdjones]

I was at my 87 year old mother-in-law's on Saturday, and she asked me to look at her house insurance renewal as she thought it seems too high. €800 through the AA for a plain 100 Sqm bungalow. And on their figures €165k to rebuild, which is definitely low. AXA online €316 insured for €210k. I looked up her previous premiums and the literally doubled in 3 years. 

AA = Exploiters of the elderly.

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

16 hours ago, stephen01 said:

 

I doubt we’ll ever know who was responsible for it, but I know people will fight against any planning on this site now.

 

Looks like it was a nice serviceable place, completely surrounded by Utilities. You will... in a few years time after the public have lost interest, moved on, and planning* has stealthily gone through one way or another. Might as well get your 'NO TO (insert industrial expansion here)' posters printed, ready.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

21 hours ago, stephen01 said:

A local pub which has been in the news a lot recently, local and national, spontaneously  burst into flames last night,  built in 1765. 

I remember standing in the grounds with my arms around my now wife asking if she’d be my girlfriend under the fireworks on bonfire night when we were 16.  And more recently our daughter working behind the bar and having a pint on a Sunday lunch. 

 

 

 

@fairkens - which part is funny?

Back on topic, apparently the access road was blocked for the fire service to access due to 'flytipping'. 

The whole thing smells fishier than Mel B's character on Bo Selecta - it'll be interesting to see what happens next. I was reading about The Claremont in Eastbourne burning down recently - will it be rebuilt in the style of the original? Place your bets.

Who remembers the fire at the Royal Clarence in Exeter seven years ago? Grade 2 listed and from what I remember,  the then owners took the hefty insurance payout, sold the ruined shell and ran. 

The system's broken, isn't it? 

[LoftyvRS]

There's a lot of social media coverage on the Crooked House fire, the whole thing does appear to stink.  One sure fire way (pardon the pun) of now having to tear the shell down and build faceless houses or whatever.

The Black Country museum have said today that they are not in a position to take the remains, and were not in a position before the fire either so that's another nail in the local coffin.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

The Claremont in Eastbourne burning down recently - will it be rebuilt in the style of the original?

The site is for sale I believe, if you buy it you could rebuild it decently

[Dick Cheeseburger]

9 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

The site is for sale I believe, if you buy it you could rebuild it decently

System would be better if those who receive the insurance payout have to rebuild the place back to something vaguely like original. 

[bunglebus]

Bloody Halfords! 

Bought their all singing and dancing 5 year guarantee battery right at the end of 2019 but the Passat has been struggling to start recently. I've had them test it several times and it says good/recharge - but it doesn't charge properly. 

Yesterday I put it on charge for several hours, left it disconnected overnight then did a 22 mile drive without turning off on my way to them. They tested it and yet again "good/recharge". They then offered to test the alternator etc (which I'd already done) and the battery was so flat it wouldn't start - they then jumped it and tried telling me 14.1v is low! Bloke just walked off after we asked about contacting their head office.

Battery is clearly fucked but because "computer says no" they're not interested. Now talking to their live chat/Facebook bods 😡

[Zelandeth]

Yep, precisely as much trash behind the hedge we've been having removed this morning as expected.  Probably full car boot's worth of bottles, more needles than you can shake a stick at, a bunch of industrial veg oil buckets (okay, those were a surprise), and a whole bike which has clearly been there for several years.

Now I have the "fun" of clearing that all up.  This is precisely why we've decided to get rid of it though and just move the fence up to the boundary with the footpath though.  There was a gap behind it which seemed to attract a certain type of people, and we were sick of having to clean up their leavings which often as not were chucked over the fence into our garden.

Hopefully now their cover is gone they'll bugger off somewhere else.

[cobblers]

1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

Bloody Halfords! 

Bought their all singing and dancing 5 year guarantee battery right at the end of 2019 but the Passat has been struggling to start recently. I've had them test it several times and it says good/recharge - but it doesn't charge properly. 

Yesterday I put it on charge for several hours, left it disconnected overnight then did a 22 mile drive without turning off on my way to them. They tested it and yet again "good/recharge". They then offered to test the alternator etc (which I'd already done) and the battery was so flat it wouldn't start - they then jumped it and tried telling me 14.1v is low! Bloke just walked off after we asked about contacting their head office.

Battery is clearly fucked but because "computer says no" they're not interested. Now talking to their live chat/Facebook bods 😡

Back when I worked there I'd have just swapped it because I didn't care, no skin off my nose. Company made a fortune on them, they could afford to replace stuff for no reason.

Towards the end of my employment they changed battery suppliers, and the new place wouldn't honour any warranty returns without a printout from this fancy battery tester machine they sent us authorising it.

However, you could hook the tester up to any battery, or even a tin of corned beef and it would say "recharge and retest".  Nobody is going to bring a fully charged battery back because it's not working, and we were expressly forbidden from charging batteries in store, so we would have to tell people to take it away, re-charge it, bring it back and we'd try again.

It was a system designed to make it very hard for anyone to claim warranty on a battery.  That said, 90+% of battery failures are caused by misuse or a vehicle fault so I can't really blame them for wanting to get the returns numbers down. It's just that they did it in a sly way.

[Zelandeth]

Additional grump.

Oh joy, one of my very favourite repair jobs.

*Adds it to the list.*

[bunglebus]

44 minutes ago, cobblers said:

Back when I worked there I'd have just swapped it because I didn't care, no skin off my nose. Company made a fortune on them, they could afford to replace stuff for no reason.

Towards the end of my employment they changed battery suppliers, and the new place wouldn't honour any warranty returns without a printout from this fancy battery tester machine they sent us authorising it.

However, you could hook the tester up to any battery, or even a tin of corned beef and it would say "recharge and retest".  Nobody is going to bring a fully charged battery back because it's not working, and we were expressly forbidden from charging batteries in store, so we would have to tell people to take it away, re-charge it, bring it back and we'd try again.

It was a system designed to make it very hard for anyone to claim warranty on a battery.  That said, 90+% of battery failures are caused by misuse or a vehicle fault so I can't really blame them for wanting to get the returns numbers down. It's just that they did it in a sly way.

I'm ex-Halfords too, I well remember swapping them and I think that also re-set the warranty period! 

I was thinking of taking them the battery and asking the smart arse who was trying to suggest my alternator wasn't right to charge and test it if he was so sure it wasn't faulty. Sounds like they won't do that anyway. 

I could leave it in charge for days but it won't ever be full

[bunglebus]

39 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Additional grump.

Oh joy, one of my very favourite repair jobs.

*Adds it to the list.*

CV boot grease is the devil's sputum

[Dyslexic Viking]

The mot on the Merc went worse than thought and have a ballache now getting it to pass.

[RoverFolkUs]

4 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Bloody Halfords! 

Bought their all singing and dancing 5 year guarantee battery right at the end of 2019 but the Passat has been struggling to start recently. I've had them test it several times and it says good/recharge - but it doesn't charge properly. 

Yesterday I put it on charge for several hours, left it disconnected overnight then did a 22 mile drive without turning off on my way to them. They tested it and yet again "good/recharge". They then offered to test the alternator etc (which I'd already done) and the battery was so flat it wouldn't start - they then jumped it and tried telling me 14.1v is low! Bloke just walked off after we asked about contacting their head office.

Battery is clearly fucked but because "computer says no" they're not interested. Now talking to their live chat/Facebook bods 😡

They probably have 2 types of tester, one gets used at auto centers during a service to give an artificially poor reading and the other is reserved for the retail stores to give artificially positive results on warranty claims .. 😆

(Cynic etc etc)

Jokes aside, I'd be tempted to take it to another branch to take them up on a free battery test.. see what the result is when you are unaware* of its warranty and might need to buy a new one. 

[goosey]

Left home at 9am got to Fraserburgh Scotland at 6pm 480 something miles in 9 hours, a bit tired to say the least 

[goosey]

Only just realised the radiator is on full blast in my hotel room for some bizarre fucked up reason 

[Spiny Norman]

On 8/6/2023 at 2:41 PM, Spiny Norman said:

If it's anything like in Glasgow, the demolition crews will be on the scene as soon as the fire engines leave. Funny* how they're always available at short notice in these situations. Check your local councillors' back gardens next summer  for suspicious looking new swimming pools...

Aye, that's it down.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/fury-crooked-house-reduced-rubble-27475941

[goosey]

8 minutes ago, Spiny Norman said:

Aye, that's it down.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/fury-crooked-house-reduced-rubble-27475941

Quite sad, I went there many times when I was young 

was it like 2 weeks from sold to new owners, closed down, permit for re-use of building applied for, suspicious fire then total demolition 

[bunglebus]

3 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

They probably have 2 types of tester, one gets used at auto centers during a service to give an artificially poor reading and the other is reserved for the retail stores to give artificially positive results on warranty claims

One of my other ideas is to go to one of the Autocentres for a free vehicle check...

Other ideas include chucking the old battery through their window but that might not end well

[RoverFolkUs]

6 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

One of my other ideas is to go to one of the Autocentres for a free vehicle check...

Other ideas include chucking the old battery through their window but that might not end well

Whatever happens I wish you the best of luck 😅

[willswitchengage]

Looking at renewals for the boring Modern's insurance, prices gone up a lot in the past year...

[Supernaut]

3 hours ago, goosey said:

Left home at 9am got to Fraserburgh Scotland at 6pm 480 something miles in 9 hours, a bit tired to say the least 

Then after all that, you're in bloody Fraserburgh!

What have you done to deserve that sort of penance?

[Split_Pin]

1 hour ago, goosey said:

Quite sad, I went there many times when I was young 

was it like 2 weeks from sold to new owners, closed down, permit for re-use of building applied for, suspicious fire then total demolition 

Absolute disgrace. I hope whatever is built in its place ritually gets its windows panned in until the end of time.

If its any consolation, there is a historic canal lockhouse near me that was an excellent restaurant for many years. The owner wanted to sell but for whatever reason razed it to the ground instead. Unfortunately for him he was caught and as far as I know he's still in prison. 

[Mrcento]

Happens a lot here too. Always to the listed buildings where some kind of planning permission had recently been denied or sale had just gone through etc.

And it's incredible how quickly demolition crews can get there.

We're talking heavy, slow moving equipment taken off a site, moved across the country and at work in under 48 hours when it'd normally take several more days to free it up from a job, relocate and set it up,

almost like they had some brown envelopes in their drawer and prior knowledge their services would be required, if only the police had access to the same info about what buildings were about to be set alight by those pesky youths that always get the blame....

[Split_Pin]

24 minutes ago, Mrcento said:

pesky youths

Yet the new construction site will no doubt be heavily guarded by security.

On a lighter note, in the late 80s when Walker homes were building new houses behind our estate one of the older boys called Hamish would purposely go into the site just to antagonise the security guard and get a chase. He was an unsurprisingly very angry man with a mullet and moustache who when provoked would broadside round the corner in his red Lada Riva shouting and swearing as he chased Hamish who was far more agile on his Raleigh Burner and never got caught.

The guard didn't deserve this, poor guy like, but we were all only about eight and though it was funny at the time.

[adw1977]

1 hour ago, goosey said:

Quite sad, I went there many times when I was young 

was it like 2 weeks from sold to new owners, closed down, permit for re-use of building applied for, suspicious fire then total demolition 

I hope they get refused planning permission to build anything on the site, but no doubt it will be treated as a brownfield site.

[goosey]

59 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Then after all that, you're in bloody Fraserburgh!

What have you done to deserve that sort of penance?

Service contract 

like a preventative maintenance that we do to our dispense pumps and equipment we supply, shall be here till Friday. As it’s factory fortnight we kind of have the run of the place. I was in Chester last week for the same thing at a different company 

[junkyarddog]

2 hours ago, Spiny Norman said:

Aye, that's it down.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/fury-crooked-house-reduced-rubble-27475941

How the hell is that allowed to happen!!

Makes investigating the cause of the fire an impossibility now!

258 years old,destroyed for sheer greed.

[sierraman]

12 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Absolute disgrace. I hope whatever is built in its place ritually gets its windows panned in until the end of time.

If its any consolation, there is a historic canal lockhouse near me that was an excellent restaurant for many years. The owner wanted to sell but for whatever reason razed it to the ground instead. Unfortunately for him he was caught and as far as I know he's still in prison. 

Happened near us as well, a pub was demolished (in the night - as you do!). The council made noises about compelling them to rebuild it as it was listed. Then the spineless bastards capitulated and agreed planning permission to build a supermarket, I’d have insisted it was rebuilt brick by brick then took them down the legal route.